Timeless
by inkbender
Summary: The Pokédex owners are stranded in the middle of a flooded world when they fail to defeat Team Aqua's Archie at Hoenn's Battle Frontier. With nothing left to lose, each must find their lost teammates and summon the courage to fight a mysterious sea monster that threatens to drown what's left of their land. Post-apocalyptic PokéSpe AU, inspired by "Zelda: Windwaker" and "FFX."
1. Oblivion

**Summary: **A look at what might have happened had the Pokedex owners _not_ been able to defeat Archie in the final battle at Hoenn's Battle Frontier. Post-apocalyptic PokéSpe AU after the Emerald chapter.  
**Legal:** Pokemon Special and its ensemble cast belongs to Hidenori Kusaka. The plot belongs to me.  
**Length:** My current outline has this story at 40 chapters. For now, this prologue will serve as a teaser, as well as transition between the canon final battle and the alternate universe as created by said final battle.  
**Inspirations:** Obviously, _Pokemon Special. _Also _The Legend of Zelda: Windwaker _and _Final Fantasy X_, reasons of which will make more sense in later chapters. And if you already know both of those games, then you already have a majority of this story figured out :P  
**Thanks:** to beta _The Great_ _Gonzales_, who frankly is pretty amazing. Her notes detailed and specific and have helped me develop greater concepts beyond just grammar and spelling.  
**Warnings: **Rated T for violence. Not the cartoon type either. Maybe a little blood. No gore or sex though. This follows the original Japanese manga in which Green is Red's male rival and Blue is the girl.

* * *

**Timeless - Prologue - "Oblivion"**

* * *

Brilliant sunshine. Soft summer breezes. Pidgeys chirping.

Oh yeah, and the blazing inferno of the Team Rocket airship that Red just crashed.

All in a day's work of Kanto's Pokedex owners: Red, Green, Blue, and Yellow. Teaming up with Mewtwo, saving Silver, Professor Oak, and Blue's parents from Team Rocket, pushing a dysfunctional airship out of Vermillion City into a deserted grass field using Pokemon attacks, defeating the Rocket team, "the Three Beasts", and effectively ending the criminal gang of Team Rocket forever.

Blue's happy—her parents are safe, Silver escaped from Giovanni's grasp (and, after finding out Giovanni was his _father_, eventually came to accept the fact with Green's help), Green trusted and worked with her, and Deoxys teleported Red out of the airship before it crashed.

Speaking of Red… why isn't he wearing a shirt?

Blue decides not to amusingly question Red about his shirtless state, even as he scoops the napping Yellow into his arms. Instead, glancing at her friends, she exclaims, "It's like a reunion of Pokedex holders!"

Red, Silver, even Green grins back at her. As Red gets to his feet with some psychic assistance from Mewtwo, he glances up into the sky. Blue follows his gaze—above them, Deoxys, the DNA Pokemon, rises slowly into the air. Team Rocket had manipulated it since it came to life; now that Red and Mewtwo have ended Team Rocket, Red's given Deoxys the freedom to seek its own kind.

Yet another Pokedex owner adventure completed.

* * *

"Looks like this entire fiasco is over," Professor Oak sighs in relief. Despite the fiery crash of the Team Rocket airship, Red's and Yellow's Pikachus had scampered over the hill and greeted him cheerfully; it was hardly likely that their owners were injured.

"Not yet," Kanto's Icy leader, Lorelei, shouts. "My device is reacting… that means Sird of the Three Beasts is nearby!"

Kimberly, the elderly lady who taught ultimate moves to starter Pokemon, freezes in her tracks at the mention of the cunning Team Rocket lieutenant; she, along with two other two men, were the catalysts of this whole mess to begin with. "What? Are you absolutely sure, Lorelei?"

Lorelei grins foxily as her Jynx psychically cuts into a ball of ice, forming a doll-like figure. "Don't worry; if Sird's this close, I can pay her back for the destruction she caused on my hometown."

Her Jynx holds up an icy voodoo doll of Sird. With a delighted smirk, it waves a dark hand over the doll's leg, encasing it in rings of ice.

* * *

Red beams at his friends as he shifts Yellow's position in his arms. Another crazy adventure, and they're all still alive.

"You're all still alive… Pokedex owners…"

Red's joyful spirits evaporate instantly as a raspy and unnervingly familiar voice floats over them.

"I'm surprised you're all perfectly fine," Sird says as she limps past the crashed airship, smoke rising from her burnt clothes. She looks like she's about to collapse, yet a dark energy burns around her and maintains her posture. Red is instantly on guard; Green and Blue are suspicious as well. "You all have my admiration," Sird continues, swaying unstably. "You're all so strong, to overcome my plans for Deoxys…" Her eyes focus on Red. "That's why it's too dangerous to let you run around free."

Green's shoulders tense, and he steps in front of Blue defensively. Red turns slightly, hiding Yellow behind his torso. Purple psychic power swirls around the both of them as Mewtwo prepares to fight. Before they can do anything else, though, ice crystalizes around Sird's entire leg instantly.

Sird shivers in pain. "Lorelei…" she mutters to herself. "It's going to take all of my strength just to escape…" She glances up into the sky, where Deoxys still hovers, and smirks. "But I don't plan on escaping empty-handed. Deoxys, the Pokemon we worked so hard to capture… and you're letting it go free?!" Within seconds, she's withdrawn a round device from her pocket, aiming it at Deoxys.

"No!" Red shouts. "It wasn't easy for Deoxys to regain its freedom!"

Blue steps forward. "We won't let you manipulate Deoxys again!"

_You will never capture the one who also seeks his origin—the one who shares my sentiments,_ Mewtwo growls, leaping into the sky to block Deoxys from Sird's sight. When a beam of dark energy blasts out of Sird's device, Mewtwo raises a psychic Barrier; the Barrier absorbs the dark energy, allowing Deoxys to zoom out of sight.

Seconds later, Sird's attack shatters Mewtwo's purple shield and rebounds off his body, landing straight on top of Red, Yellow, Green, Blue, and Silver. Fragments of psychic energy are carried by the darkness; each brilliant purple fragment pierces their bodies, allowing the dark energy to seep inside and consume them. To Red's right, Green chokes; his brown hair turns grey and ceases its constant waver. Yellow's weight triples in Red's arms but he can't move them. His vision blurs as Silver's movement towards Blue slows, then stops. Red's heart thuds and he can't think and he can't move—

* * *

Professor Oak and Lorelei jump in shock as an explosion sounds behind the hill and waves of dark powder roll towards them. Lorelei squawks, tugging her Jynx and its icy voodoo doll of Sird away from the damage; but a look of panicked dread leaps over the elderly Kimberly's face. She grabs Oak's arm and pulls him towards the waves of dark dust.

When they arrive to the front of the airship, Oak's heart stops briefly.

His grandson, Green the Trainer. Red the energetic Fighter. Blue the cheerful Evolver, and Silver the quiet Exchanger. Yellow, the calm Healer. All stone statues.

Tears stream down the Professor's face as he touches his grandson's petrified arm.

Warmth.

* * *

Professor Oak has aged.

When Emerald first contacted the Pokemon Professor two years ago to apply for a Pokedex, the man acted half his age, with the energy and exuberance of a young adult and the experience and wisdom of an elder.

Now, Professor Oak just looks… old. His eyes are red, his face is covered in wrinkles, and his once-gray hair is now so white, it outshines his lab coat.

"Emerald—my lab assistant, Crystal, recommended you. She said that you are able to instantly recognize the origin of Pokemon, as well as behaviors."

"Yeah, I do that," Emerald frowns and shakes his head, leaning towards the communication screen, "But only at a price."

"Name any price, it doesn't matter to me," Oak murmurs. "Jirachi, the Wish Pokemon, will appear in two weeks. It only wakes every 1000 years for 7 days before it becomes invisible again, and it only grants three wishes. I need you to _catch_ that Pokemon for me. Please."

Emerald raises an eyebrow. "I only know the behavior of Pokemon I see often. So maybe if I saw this one every day for five days… but what do you need so badly that you need a Wish Pokemon for?"

"My… my grandson…"

* * *

_(Sixteen days later)_

A small Pokemon drifts over the Battle Frontier, its star-shaped body floating silently. Emerald's eyes widen as it becomes invisible again, but he knows that was the Wish Pokemon Professor Oak told him about. Professor Oak needs that Pokemon to de-petrify five teenagers… and Emerald _will_ catch it.

* * *

_Red. Yellow. Green. Blue. Silver. All petrified. I cannot feel the life of their spirits._

A glass container. So similar to the Team Rocket cage that imprisoned Mewtwo during his first couple hours of life.

_The teenagers who freed me from my genetic disability. The ones who fought for my freedom from Team Rocket. _

But this time, he is caged by Team Galactic—the criminal organization that plans on rising to power now that Team Rocket has ended.

_Sird. From Rocket to Galactic—always searching for power. Manipulating first Deoxys, and now me._

Mewtwo cannot move. Since Sird petrified him two weeks ago, he has been unable to release energy that will not damage his petrified body. Already, his stone covering is cracked, allowing Team Galactic to sap even more energy from his system.

_I… I cannot live like this. I cannot live as a simple tool of energy. _

"Unfortunately, that's pretty much all you're useful for anymore, Mewtwo."

Mewtwo grunts in pain as Sird's voice floats past him. _Release me_, Mewtwo snarls.

Sird laughs. "Not happening. You teamed with Red to work directly against Team Rocket, the organization that brought you to life. Your betrayal to those who gave you such powerful energy… this is your punishment. You're an incredible power source, and I personally enjoy pulling life energy straight out of your body."

_Red. Release him from his petrification._

"Again, not possible... because we actually don't know how to."

_Liar._

"Listen: the petrification should only work on Pokemon. As long as we know your genetic information, the petrification protein is able to attack your DNA. But humans are much more complex; human DNA has multiple repair functions that prevent the petrification protein from harming it."

_Liar,_ growls Mewtwo. _Red and Yellow were still petrified. You petrified all five of them. You knew how to modify their DNA and attack it._

Sird chuckles. "No, Mewtwo—_you_ were the one who petrified them. The sharp edges of your shattered psychic Barrier damaged their tissue enough for the harmful protein to easily petrify them."

_No._

"Yes, Mewtwo. They didn't stand a chance after _your_ damage. You were the one who petrified them for us."

Pain courses through Mewtwo. It can't be… he caused their misery? After their sacrifices in freeing him, in helping him, he was ultimately the reason for their petrification?

_You must release them. They do not deserve such punishment._

"Oh, but they do. They are the strongest barrier to Team Galactic's plans, but fortunately, you've already eliminated them."

_Eliminate?_

Sird laughs again. "Yes—within a couple weeks, Red, Yellow, Green, Blue and Silver—they will die. Their bodies will starve and collapse, leaving empty stone statues. Team Galactic's greatest competition will be gone for good." Sird's laughter cackles around him, driving him insane with its tormenting pressure. "And it's all thanks to you."

_Sird. You do not deserve to kill the world's greatest Pokemon trainers. I will kill you before you can._

"Yeah, just do that. Damage your stone body; give us more energy so we can eliminate the remaining five Pokedex trainers. Then we shall truly rule the world."

_No. I realize that my escape is not possible. I will never escape with my life intact, but if you are unwilling to cooperate, then so be it. No matter what, I will not let you harm Red and his friends._

Mewtwo realized that long ago. Team Galactic's power is too supreme; if he uses any power, it'll overwhelm and destroy his petrified body.

He'll die.

But in a few weeks, Red will die. Red, Green, Blue… even Yellow. They will perish before he can be released. And then Team Galactic will kill him as well and use his power to kill even more. The world's greatest heroes will all die because of Mewtwo, as long as he continues living.

He has no purpose to life and he cannot let others use him to destroy more lives. Especially the lives of the ones who had saved him before.

He _can_ control his final moments.

* * *

Sird almost wants to pat herself on the back as she leaves Mewtwo's cell. So maybe the petrification wasn't _all_ Mewtwo's fault… the dark power of her recently captured Darkrai, enhanced by Galactic machinery, was enough to end the Pokedex owners' lives. But breaking the indestructible will of the Genetic Pokemon Mewtwo was fun enough.

"Captain Sird?" a technician calls as she passes by. "I'm detecting unusually high levels of energy from Mewtwo."

"Great. Absorb it," she snaps. Stupid technicians; why can't they just—

"Captain Sird," another one calls. "Absorbance levels are already maxed. We can input three other extracting tubes—"

"Then do it!" she screams.

"That will take about ten minutes—"

"The power levels are increasing!"

"Our system can't handle it!"

"Impossible!" Sird shouts. "His petrified body can't handle that much power. It'll shatter before he can use it, and he'll die. If that's what he wants, then I want you guys to absorb the mess he leaves behind."

"Yes ma'am," they all reply.

"I'm a captain, dammit!"

Intimidated silence reigns for a couple seconds… until an assistant foolishly stammers, "Captain, his power is—"

"You _useless_ idiots, why do I even _bother_ hiring broke college students?" In three swift movements, Sird throws one technician to the floor, punches another in the face, and knees a third in the crotch. With people effectively cleared away from the machinery, Sird glances at the monitor's readings in peace.

Her heart stops momentarily before resuming frantically. The technicians were right to freak out—the psychic power that Mewtwo is currently exhibiting has increased exponentially. It's a crapload of power that Team Galactic had hoped to absorb over the course of five weeks… and Mewtwo's going to release it in five minutes! Sird can see it—it's condensing into a concentrated ball of energy at his core. He's going to kill himself, yet still maintain a core of energy with his thoughts and a single purpose: kill them all.

Okay, time to leave without telling anyone. Mewtwo's basic energy won't miss the absence of one life, right?

Before Sird can take a step towards freedom, purple energy knocks her flat on her stomach. The second psychic wave drives all the air in her lungs out in a wheezy scream. Machinery around her explodes; technicians scream; fiery explosions are extinguished by increasing waves of power. Concrete walls collapse, electric lights flash and dim; the floor collapses.

By the fifth wave, Sird is dead.

By the tenth wave, the entire Team Galactic building located in Hoenn has collapsed, killing all inside.

A stream of purple energy darts out from the ruins into the night sky after the tenth wave, hovering in the dust clouds before shooting south. Many people report purple dust floating down from an intensely bright purple orb; psychic Pokemon detect thoughts of anguished pain yet solid determination from the purple dust.

At one point, the purple comet emits several small spikes, which fly out in different directions and disappear soon afterwards. The main comet continues southward, passing over the ocean; its disappearance from areas populated by large amounts of people ends the reports for the night.

* * *

In Hoenn's Battle Frontier, Emerald has just completed his third challenge and is resting outside when he spots the Wish Pokemon, Jirachi. His excitement is quickly doused when a flash of purple light causes Jirachi to become invisible again; he doesn't notice the purple streak continue into the Battle Tower, where it illuminates the entire top floor.

* * *

Hoenn's dual battle gym leader Liza notices the famous "purple powder" arriving at Mossdeep City on ocean tides the next morning. She calls out her Lunatone to read it, and within two minutes, her identical twin Tate and his Solrock appear next to them. Together, they focus on the powder and pick up the strongest thought:

_Save them all._


	2. naïvety

**Summary: **A look at what might have happened had the Pokedex owners _not_ been able to defeat Archie in the final battle at Hoenn's Battle Frontier. Post-apocalyptic PokéSpe AU after the Emerald chapter.  
**Length:** Reviews will determine if I'll invest more time into this story. My current outline has it at 20 chapters. This was originally meant to be the first chapter, until my beta _The Great Gonzales_ pointed out that she was totally confused and that I needed more background. Hence the prologue.  
**Warnings: **Rated T for violence. Not the cartoon type either. Maybe a little blood. Once again, this follows the original Japanese manga in which Green is Red's male rival and Blue is the girl.

* * *

**Timeless - Chapter 1 - "****naïvety**"

* * *

"What the heck are you doing?" Crystal cries as Gold drags her across Hoenn's Battle Frontier. The Battle Tower looms over them—and light flashes out of the top floor, where Ruby, Sapphire, and Emerald have been engaged in a vicious Pokemon fight for (according to the Frontier Brains) a full hour. Their opponent is a corrupted man in armor who caught Jirachi, and Emerald is attempting to reclaim the Wish Pokemon for Professor Oak.

"No time to take the stairs," Gold smirks; a flash of light bursts out of a Pokeball on his belt, materializing into his huge Mantine… with all thirty of Crystal's Remoraids latched onto the bottom of its wings.

"You can't be serious!" Crystal interjects. Fireballs, ice crystals, and chunks of earth explode around them as enraged rental Pokemon tear up the land. It's all the Frontier Brains can do to keep them from knocking the tiny island to pieces. "They'll hit us!"

"Not if you tell your Mr. Mime to create that invisible barrier around us." Gold leaps into a hang glider strapped to Mantine's stomach. "You know, the barrier that he can make whole houses with?"

"This is insane," Crystal mutters, but she calls Mr. Mime out anyways and leaps in next to Gold. Within minutes, Mr. Mime has boxed them inside an invisible room; the missing wall in the back allows the Remoraids to fire, propelling Mantine forward at an abnormally swift pace. On top of Mantine, Mr. Mime keeps the barrier room suspended around them.

It's the most terrifying ride of her life—Mantine can't ascend vertically, so it flies above the Battle Frontier in an ascending spiral, catching the attention of all infuriated rental Pokemon below. "Incoming instant death!" Gold yells at Mr. Mime when icy spears and spheres of darkness explode against the barrier two feet beneath them.

The invisible room flashes as Mr. Mime layers Barrier on top of Barrier, creating a partially translucent psychic shield. Crystal still screams when a ball of fire breaks against the shield two feet below her; the heat tingles on her skin as the blue flames roll around the walls. Blue electricity crackles along the edges; the air warps as psychic power tries to telepathically pull them downwards. Mantine moans as its flight is halted to a simple horizontal glide.

"We need to attack the psychic ones!" Gold barks. "They're not killing us, but we're not going anywhere either!"

"Remoraid!" Crystal shouts; she captured the entire herd when they threatened to sink Yellow's boat last year, so technically she is their trainer. She points to the ones located closest to Mantine's torso, then to the ones on the tips of Mantine's wings. "You guys, keep propelling Mantine into the air! The other half, I want you to send back interference water—drench the entire area! Rainy Day, anything!"

Gold catches on, releasing his Pichu. "Kill them all!" he roars as he Pichu leaps out of the box. The Tiny Mouse Pokemon speeds away from them, waiting until Mantine is safely away before flooding the entire area with Thunder.

Mantine roars as the psychic connection holding them back slips. Within seconds, they're gaining height again. From her position squeezed next to Gold, Crystal catches sight of the battle on the Tower's top floor. Walls have been blasted apart, windows smashed open, and curtains flash with fire and smoke.

"What are you doing?" Crystal yells as Mantine continues to rise beyond the top floor. "Emerald's fighting in there! Tell Mantine to drop us off on the balcony."

"We can't just waltz in through a broken window; they'll be expecting us," Gold smirks. "Mantine! Take Down that wall!"

"That's not possible! There's reinforced—" Crystal chokes back a scream as Mantine folds its wings underneath its torso and dives head-first. "Mr. Mime, break the wall!"

Mr. Mime focuses and reforms their barrier, forming a gigantic spear. Multiple layers shatter on impact with the reinforced steel, but psychic power swirls around them and bends the wall open, allowing them to crash through the solid wall and into the destroyed ballroom. Crystal bites back a yelp as shattered pieces of Mr. Mime's barrier scratch her skin; crumbled cement bounces off her face.

Up ahead, Emerald, Ruby, and Sapphire surround a man wearing a suit of armor. Despite her and Gold's flashy, destructive entrance via Mantine, none of their friends are distracted; the armored man, however, looks at them, his head covered by a steel visor. He takes a step towards their flying Mantine, heaving a huge purple sword into the air—but then Ruby's Swampert belches up a projectile of thick mud, and the armored man whirls around and swings his sword at the Mud Fish Pokemon.

Crystal's jaw drops as the mud missile changes its flight path in midair. It's almost as if the Mud Shot bounced off an invisible barrier, choosing to splatter the floor instead of the Man in Armor.

Emerald and Ruby's parties begin to execute flashy, distracting attacks towards the Man in Armor as, on the _ceiling_, Sapphire swings from ceiling light fixtures and wires. Once she is directly above the armored man, she flips into the air and releases three huge Pokemon—the steel-plated Aggron, a combative Blaziken, and the heavyweight Donphan.

The Man in Armor leaps to the side and rolls away as the Aggron and Donphan make dents in the floor. The Blaziken rushes for the armored man immediately, who swings his purple sword at it. Despite being several feet away, Sapphire's Blaziken twists and dodges the swings as if the sword was right next to it—then an invisible barrier smashes into its torso as the man slashes the sword through the air in front of it, and Blaziken is thrown across the room.

Invisible barriers. Just like Mr. Mime. But this man only has a sword—a weapon with supernatural properties…

"Gold!" Crystal yells as Mantine barrels towards the Man in Armor. "His sword has dangerous—"

They never get that far. Without pausing, the Man in Armor swings his sword towards them. With a deafening crash, an invisible force shatters Mr. Mime's remaining barriers and shoves Mantine to the ground. Crystal loops her arms around Gold's shoulders and yanks him out of the hang glider, right before Mantine's full weight crushes the metal framework. She flips around in midair, landing on her feet; Gold squeaks as butt hits the ground next to her.

"Crystal!" Emerald shouts from across the room. "His sword has Barriers in it! He's been forcing our attacks back at us this entire time—we're basically fighting ourselves!"

"So we shouldn't attack with small objects," Crystal realizes. "We need to be able to dodge if he reflects them back!"

Emerald's Sceptile unleashes a flood of Razor Leaves that travel together in a tight group. "Be careful! He can still stab you—he hit Sudowoodo and the Barriers cracked his trunk!"

"Who is he?" Crystal asks. "And where'd he get that sword?"

Before, Emerald can answer, tiny balls begin flying everywhere—billiard balls so fast that the man doesn't even notice until they begin denting his chestplate. Gold whoops in triumph as the Man in Armor audibly gasps for breath.

"Gold, watch it!" Emerald screeches. "We can't—"

His voice is drowned out when Sapphire roars, "Who are you?"

"And what do you want with Jirachi?" Ruby follows.

The Man in Armor chuckles in between ragged breaths, and Gold's not sure whether victory has really arrived yet. Their attacks halt as the man plants his sword into the broken floor and leans against it. "It's been quite a while," the Man in Armor laughs, lifting two fingers to point at Ruby and Sapphire. "But we've met before. Since you're all so curious to know…" He places a hand on the metal visor covering his face and removes it, "I'm the leader of Team Aqua."

Sapphire almost chokes. "Archie?!"

"But… but you died!" Ruby shouts. "Wallace found his car crashed into Sootopolis City's mountainside—and your and Maxie's burnt bodies inside!"

"So I did leave my body in that flying car," Archie grins. "No matter; my spirit continues to live within this armor, _Eternity_. And this sword, _Instant_, allows me to deflect all threats endangering my last connection to this world. With _Eternity_ and _Instant_ giving me life and Jirachi under my command, nobody will be able to stop me in my ultimate purpose to rule the world!" With a flash of light, Jirachi appears before them.

"Jirachi!" Emerald shouts. He darts forward, but is immediately thrown backwards when Archie deflects him with _Instant_.

"This world is too beautiful to let such an ugly bastard to rule it!" Gold bellows, releasing his Typhlosion and Aipom. "We won't let you!"

"Jirachi!" Archie shouts as he skillfully reflects all their attacks back at them. "Open your third eye—your true eye—and grant me my wish! Raise Kyogre to control the sea and flood the world!"

Gold's running out of billiard balls to shoot at Archie. It's near impossible to hit the man, even with Typhlosion lifting waves of fire for Aipom to direct at Archie with wind fans; instead, Gold's aiming at Jirachi now, trying to knock it to the ground—and away from Archie. He even begins to fire his billiard balls in seemingly random directions; they bounce off various surfaces at least three times before zipping straight for the Wish Pokemon.

"Gold! You freakin' idiot!" Ruby screams as two of Gold's redirected balls slam into Sapphire's forehead. She collapses on the spot, and Ruby barely slides behind her in time to pull her head away from burning rubble. "What—"

The rest of his sentence is drowned out by a sudden earthquake. Gold glances out the window, and the sight makes his heart stop briefly.

A huge sphere of water hovers over the ocean in front of Hoenn's Battle Frontier. Waves of liquid cascade into the settled territory, flooding the island, and the oceans churn as a violent storm brews over its surface. The sides of the water sphere explode as fins push their way out, forming a copy of Kyogre. Not the true god of the sea, but a water and energy copy with just as much power over the ocean.

"Emergency! The Kyogre copy's here!" Gold shouts, dragging Crystal out of the way of a collapsing wall. She screams as concrete scrapes her legs, but her flexibility allows her to somersault away from danger. Gold grabs her shoulders and swivels her around. "Crystal, Professor Oak told me you're the best Pokemon Catcher in the world. You need to capture Jirachi!"

Crystal shakes her head. "I can't! It's not possible to catch other people's Pokemon. Jirachi's already submitted to Archie; it won't listen to anybody else unless Archie frees it!"

Gold smirks at her. "Then make up a way! I've got to check up on Silver—you're in control of things till I get back."

Crystal nods firmly. "Bring him back," she whispers, and Gold winks before running up the stairs towards the top floor of the Battle Tower.

Crystal pulls her bag away from her waist, revealing her collection of specialized Pokeballs. She doesn't have to time to choose, though; Archie has _Instant_ out and is already advancing towards Emerald and his Sceptile. Behind the tiny boy, his Dusclops and Sudowoodo prepare for battle.

Screaming desperately, Crystal tosses the first wave of Pokeballs into the air. She lifts her right leg and, with confident precision, kicks every ball towards Jirachi. With every stroke, her leg muscles work to spin her foot slightly, which in turn rotates the ball and curves the ball's path. Within seconds, Crystal has thrown at least fifteen Pokeballs directly at Jirachi.

None of them actually make it far enough; Archie pauses his attack on Emerald and, with one swing, deflects all of Crystal's balls with _Instant_. Crystal doesn't even blink; as all her balls fly in various directions, she flips into the air and kicks each one back. For a few minutes, she plays a modified version of Pokeball tennis with Archie, leaping and twirling in midair to knock Pokeballs back at Jirachi as Emerald and Ruby attack and distract Archie.

"Enough!" Archie finally screams, swinging _Instant_ so violently that all 30 of Crystal's Pokeballs shatter on the floor. Crystal is about to launch her remaining 20 balls at him when Archie shouts, "Jirachi! Grant me my second wish!"

The Wish Pokemon opens all three of its eyes and regards Archie woefully. Still, its third eye shines, and Crystal's heart drops in dread.

"It appears that _Instant _may not be enough," Archie smiles. "For that, you have my admiration. But I do not have the time to deal with you—I have goals to accomplish. I have a greater purpose—"

"So do we!" Ruby retorts, standing in front of Sapphire's unconscious body defensively. "We're going to save the world from bastards like you! Zuzu! Mud Shot!"

Ruby's Swampert coughs up a disgusting amount of mud and launches it at Archie, but a sudden wall of water rises in front of Archie and deflects it to the side. Archie's face glows in satisfaction as he raises his arms—and walls of water stream around him. "Jirachi has given me control over water. Just try to attack me, and I swear I'll drown you."

Crystal is literally frozen in fear as she watches increasing amounts of water swirl around Archie, driven by the movement of his arms. Outside, the Energy Kyogre copy continues to flood the Battle Frontier with water; the Battle Tower shakes as whitecaps crash against its foundation, and Crystal notices that their entire floor is soaked. There is water everywhere.

Sapphire's unconscious; Ruby's shielding her. Emerald looks exhausted. Crystal's the oldest child in the room and she _knows_ they don't stand a chance. If Archie can suspend water in midair like that, who's to say that he won't shove it down their throats? Or just hold it over their faces till they suffocate…

They can't fight him. They need to retreat, recuperate, and fight back at a later time. Never mind that the world's about to collapse around them. She risked her life once before to save the Johto region—but she'd done it of her own will. This time around, somebody else is threatening her life, as well as Emerald's—and it's absolutely terrifying.

Crystal slowly raises her hands in the air in surrender. "Archie," she almost begs. "We'll… we'll leave. We won't fight you."

The man in armor grins; concentric ripples of water fluctuate around him. "Is that right?"

"Crystal!" Emerald shouts, shocked. "We can't—"

"We need to," Ruby answers roughly, still crouched in front of Sapphire. "We don't have a choice."

"That's right," Archie laughs. "I'm the one making the decisions now. And I've got to say, I regret not experiencing this rush of power sooner." He thrusts his palm towards Emerald, and an intense beam of water smashes the younger boy _through _a plaster wall.

"Emerald!" Crystal screams, running towards her unconscious friend—but the force of a waterfall slams her into the soggy carpet.

"Wait a minute, there," Archie scolds. "I haven't finished explaining yet. That boy and his party delayed my wish to Jirachi by fighting me for the past hour. That's why he will die."

Crystal grips the wet carpet with her fingers. Emerald fought to protect the world.

"And that unconscious girl? She's probably close to death anyways. Ironic, isn't it—killed by one of her own team members."

Crystal almost pulls fibers of the carpet. No, Gold did not kill Sapphire. It may have been Gold's billiard balls, but Archie deflected them at her on purpose.

"Her boyfriend, though… he's still very much alive."

Crystal looks up at this, just in time to see a blob of water attach itself to Ruby's face. He gasps, trying to splash the liquid off his skin—but then, with a flick of his hand, Archie forces the water into Ruby's nose. The boy clutches his throat as the water finds its way into his windpipe.

"You," Archie sneers at her, pushing away a Swampert's blast of muddy water. "You didn't really do anything other than break a wall open while flying in on a Mantine. I'm not offended by you—so go. Run away. Save your pathetic little life."

Crystal squeezes her eyes shut, trying to trap weak little tears behind her eyelids. She is not pathetic. She is not weak. She will not run away. Emerald's hurt, Sapphire's head is injured, and Ruby is drowning, right in front of her.

With a cry of rage, Crystal releases her entire party and launches herself at Archie.

* * *

Tate is motionless. As Liza approaches him, she can feel the panic rising in his mind—and then she feels the source of it as well: something powerful disrupts the balance of the world. She notices the change in the ocean tides; the waves are growing stronger, washing further up the sandy beaches of Mossdeep City. Something bad is happening. The ocean is reacting to strange psychic powers. Liza recalls that the same thing happened a year ago, when Team Aqua called Kyogre to increase the amount of water in the world. Only Groudon had countered it by creating more land, until Rayquaza returned them to their states of peaceful rest.

But this time, Liza can feel only one power. And it's not natural. It is not the true Kyogre.

"Liza," Tate speaks. "Hoenn is in trouble."

"It will drown soon," she murmurs. "We must contact the gym leaders."

"Code Blue," they say together.

The ocean will cover them all.

* * *

Every window shows more signs of destruction: the ocean roils with huge waves and the gigantic Kyogre copy floats around the Battle Frontier, belching up enormous amounts of water while expanding all the time. It now encompasses over half the Battle Frontier.

But Gold's reached the exhibition center below the top floor, and the petrified forms of Red, Yellow, Green, Blue, and Silver stand in front of him. His closest friend is currently frozen in a crouching position behind Blue—the girl Silver considers to be his older sister.

Interestingly, all the statues appear to be stained purple—as if purple dust was scattered all over them after they were petrified. Gold rubs his finger on Silver's shoulder; a little bit of dust rubs off, but not much. Maybe it's an identification thing Professor Oak put on to verify the statues. Gold sniffs it; it smells like death. Death, dried blood, salty tears. In disgust, Gold rubs the residue on his finger into the carpet.

Gold fingers the bangle in his hand; the old lady Kimberly gave him and Crystal similar bangles, which taught his Typhlosion and her Meganium the ultimate moves Blast Burn and Frenzy Plant. This bangle will teach Hydro Cannon to Silver's Feraligatr—if Silver is conscious enough. According to Professor Oak, the statues are warm—which means that the teenagers inside are still partially conscious. Silver was reported to be warmer—and thus more conscious—than all the others, so Kimberly believes that, if Silver concentrates on the bangle, he'll be able to learn and teach the technique to his Pokemon.

Gold's not so sure. Hey, it took him two months to master the technique and teach it to Exbo, his Typhlosion. There's no way Silver's going to learn it in ten minutes. Hopefully by then, Crystal will have captured Jirachi and wished for Red's, Yellow's, Green's, Blue's, and Silver's de-petrification.

Gold slips the golden bangle on his friend's warm stone wrist and uses a special glue to secure it to Silver's petrified clothes—that way no cheap tourists can steal it. Oak was right; Silver is rather warm.

Experimentally, Gold touches Blue, then Green next. Blue is cooler than Silver, but she's hotter than Green or Red and Yellow. It's an interesting pattern—a lot like Pokemon eggs. Pokemon eggs that are warmer usually hatch sooner, or at least age faster.

The bangle around Silver's wrist begins to glow.

Gold's eyes almost bulge out of his skull, and he grabs his friend's stone hand. No way. Is Silver actually—

His train of thought is interrupted as the entire Battle Tower rumbles. The floor beneath him shakes and cracks appear in the concrete walls. The moment Gold regains his balance, though, another powerful blow trembles the building. The cracks widen; the floor groans. Water begins to spurt and dribble from the walls, but none of that matters when the fin of the Energy Kyogre copy explodes through the window, spraying Gold with a wave of dirty water that knocks him away from the statues. Before he can stand up, the floor beneath him cracks, and then he's falling through empty space.

* * *

Ruby's vision is so blurry. The horrifying sensation of water actively trying to push its way into his lungs stopped a couple minutes ago, when Crystal roared and attacked Archie—but Ruby still feels like he's drowning. There's a lot of water in his mouth and he doesn't have the strength to cough it out—

Zuzu suddenly appears in front of him, and then it feels like water is being _pulled_ out his body. Ruby coughs; water dribbles out of his nostrils and his vision is suddenly clear and sharp as his Swampert continues to draw excess water from him. The entire floor is drenched in water and some walls have collapsed. There's a body trapped under one concrete slab—Crystal! Crystal's trapped… Ruby tries to pull himself to his feet, but he's still too weak. Zuzu's arms reach under his arms, supporting him gently.

Ruby coughs again. "Thanks, Zuzu. But Crystal…"

"I'm pretty sure she's dead."

Anger explodes in Ruby's mind as he glances at Archie, but defeat immediately follows it. Archie is floating in a pillar of water three feet tall, and even more water surges around him in waves. And then his heart stops: Sapphire's limp, unconscious body floats in another pillar of water two feet away.

"This one's been sleeping for a while," Archie chuckles. "Two billiard balls to the forehead—she must have permanent brain damage or something. I don't think she'll live much longer. How to dispose of her body…?"

"No," Ruby chokes. "Please. Give her to me."

Archie smirks. "Why? Dead bodies are such a hassle—they're too incriminating. Much better to make their death look like an accident… like accidently falling out of the window, perhaps?" Archie pushes Sapphire's pillar of water towards the broken window. "A fall from 50 floors will definitely break her neck, I think."

"No!" Ruby cries. "Please… you can't! I…" He hasn't even told her…

Archie laughs. "You want to tell her something?"

Speechless, Ruby can only nod.

"Well, too late," Archie snickers. "Now she'll never know." He promptly tosses Sapphire out the window.

Ruby doesn't think. He just gets up and runs. He's still weak and his legs are going to give out any minute. The wall of water rushing towards him from Archie is going to knock him flat, and he won't be able to get up again. But Sapphire's going to die and _dammit _he will not let that happen.

Water blasts into his back—a concentrated blast of Surf from Zuzu, one that launches him out the window before Archie's water can knock him down. It's a risky move and Ruby almost wants to scream at the Swampert in surprise, but then he spots Sapphire's limp form and dives at her.

At which point, Ruby realizes he doesn't have any flying Pokemon.

But as he crashes into Sapphire's body, he pulls her entire belt of Pokemon loose and screams, "Pilo, help us!"

Only one ball explodes open, and with a rush of air, Sapphire's Tropius slows their descent significantly. Still, it's not enough; they've fallen too far. Ruby just cradles Sapphire in his arms as Pilo ploughs into the flooded courtyard in front of the Battle Tower; he tries to shield her body as they're thrown into a foot of water.

On one side, the Energy Kyogre copy unleashes enormous Water Pulses out to sea. On the other, the Battle Tower shakes as Archie continues to blast it with his watery attacks.

They're trapped on a tiny island with no escape.

* * *

The tides are much larger than normal. Large waves are endangering Pallet Town houses that are located next to the beach, and half the town has evacuated to higher grounds already. After Hoenn's emergency warning, Kanto and Johto have responded with similar caution.

But Professor Oak is still worried.

His grandson is still in Hoenn. Green. And Red and Yellow, Blue, and Silver. He learned that Jirachi would appear on a certain island in Hoenn, so he sent his friend Scott to build a settlement there—the Battle Frontier. Then, with Crystal's help, he recruited Emerald, an orphan boy who could easily recognize and exploit Pokemon behaviors, to capture Jirachi. It was the only way to de-petrify the teenagers that Oak could think of.

Unfortunately, Crystal hasn't reported back to him about their current situation. Oak can only hope that she will call within the next couple hours with tales of success. Time and time again, Pokedex owners have saved the world; Oak doesn't doubt them now.

But he's still worried. With aquatic areas increasing exponentially and sightings of some large water-based creature, communication between regions has become limited as the gym leaders scramble to secure their areas.

Pallet Town has evacuated. Places like Mt. Silver have opened as refugee camps for citizens from Kanto and Johto. Misty and Brock, the two closest gym leaders to Pallet Town, are currently shipping citizens towards higher grounds with their massive mobile Pokemon.

All Oak can really think about, though, is Green's safety. Green, Red, and Blue—the three trainers from Pallet Town. He's known them for ten years, seen them grown up… seen them petrified. All he wants is to see them alive again.

"Please, Jirachi," Oak murmurs, tears dripping down his weathered face. "Save them. Save them all."

* * *

With a final shudder, the Battle Tower begins to disintegrate. The entire top half tilts forward as the center of the tower dissolves into dust and muddy water. Archie and Jirachi float in the sky hundreds of feet above Ruby and Sapphire, and Archie continues to blast the crumbling building with concentrated beams of water.

Crystal. Gold. Emerald.

Sapphire.

Her face is soft and relaxed. She's still unconscious; there are two bruises on her forehead, made by billiard balls Archie had bounced towards her. When she's awake, she's strong and determined—as much as he is, but with a fiery desire to battle. But when she's… asleep… like this, she's so beautiful.

She can't die. She won't. Ruby won't let her.

"JIRACHI!" he screams, releasing his Delcatty, Coco. Her Cute Charm immediately spreads, attracting the attention of the male Wish Pokemon. With a mournful sigh, Jirachi glances down at Ruby.

"Jirachi! Please! Fulfill my wish!"

Archie's hand clamps down on the Wish Pokemon's star shaped head—but Jirachi continues to look at Ruby.

"Save us!" Ruby begs. "Save us all, please."

Seconds of silence. Water splashes around them, but all Ruby can do is stare at Jirachi as tears stream down his face, as he clutches Sapphire even closer to his body.

Then, slowly, Jirachi nods. Crystal ribbons wrap around its body as it fulfills its third wish. The last ribbon on its star-shaped head glows and dissolves into dust. More ribbons wrap around Jirachi, hiding it from sight, until only a large crystal egg is left.

The building above them explodes, and large slabs on concrete begin to fall directly above them. Ruby waits; Jirachi will save them. They're going to be safe. Sapphire will live. Red will de-petrify, Crystal will come back to life, Gold will be fine, Jirachi will shield him and Sapphire from harm.

Ruby closes his eyes. Jirachi will save them.

They're safe.


	3. lost - PAST

**Timeless - Chapter 2a - "lost" - PAST**

* * *

She can't see anything. And she can't move.

Sapphire briefly panics when her head hits the arms planted on either side of her. She catches glimpses of little flashes of light, but she can't—

Wait. Arms?

"Ruby!" Sapphire croaks. She's lying on her back and he's kneeling directly above her. His arms strain to keep his body up… because there's a large slab of concrete resting on his back.

He's keeping it from crushing her by supporting it with his own body.

"Sapph…" Ruby gasps, his eyes snapping open. "Are you okay?"

"There's concrete on top of you! Why the heck are you worried about me?!"

"You need to crawl out from under me," Ruby hisses. "And go get help."

He's serious. He's absolutely serious. He doesn't ridicule her in return… he's actually expressing care for her. Ruby's only done that once before—right after they saved Hoenn from the destruction caused by the conflicting Kyogre and Groudon, gods of the ocean and land. He told her that he liked her and that he would back her up; then they dove into the battle with with Archie and Maxie, the leaders of Team Aqua and Team Magma.

They won. They saved the world. The only problem was that Ruby didn't remember his confession to her—he went right back to poking fun at her at every opportunity. And she went back to throwing rocks at him and clonking him in the head.

Sapphire pulls herself out from underneath Ruby slowly. Her foot catches on his pants and he gasps as his stability wobbles, but Sapphire reaches up and pushes up against the stone wall above them until he steadies himself. The concrete actually isn't that heavy… but it must have fallen from up high, because there are three little ribbons of blood running down Ruby's right arm.

He took the concrete wall for her. She's barely scratched up while he's bleeding. The wild tomboy, the one who regularly throws herself into dangerous situations, is unhurt because the girly guy took the pain for her.

As soon as Sapphire pulls herself to her feet, she grips the slab with her hands. The concrete feels like rough sandpaper, but Sapphire ignores it as she begins to heave upwards. It wasn't that heavy when she was underneath it…

"Sapph," Ruby squeaks. "There's no way—"

Back to his normal, derisive self. Muscles bulge in her arms as Sapphire snarls, lifting the slab an inch in the air.

Ruby's jaw drops.

Sapphire spits between her clenched teeth, "Well, _what are you waiting for_?"

The stone threatens to slip from her fingers; Sapphire growls before it gains any more ground. After six years swinging from tree to tree (and wearing nothing but leaves for clothing), Sapphire knows that she can hold it.

Especially for _him_.

"I'm out!"

Sapphire drops it. The stone slab crunches into the pavement and splits. Sapphire loses her balance, falling on her butt, but not before Ruby tries to catch her. However, since Sapphire probably weighs more than he does, she just ends up pulling him to the ground with her.

"Ouch!" they both exclaim simultaneously.

Sapphire whips her head around to face Ruby, snapping, "There's no way you could pull me up in your condition, Coordinator!"

"Are you implying that you're too heavy?" Ruby teases.

Sapphire hisses, "Idiot, I mean you have no muscle; you do fashion, not training! And you just hurt your back. You couldn't catch a Jigglypuff if you tried."

Ruby sighs. "Listen, Sapph, I know we've had trouble in the past working toget—" He notices that Sapphire isn't even looking at him. "Hey! I said listen!"

Sapphire doesn't reply—she's too busy staring upwards, where dust clouds have cleared away enough for her to see the sky. Where the Battle Tower once stood, there is nothing but empty space. And around her, broken concrete. Metal pipes. Shattered light bulbs. Dirty carpet. Her shocked mind takes a couple seconds to realize that the Battle Tower no longer exists as a 50-floor building, but as a crushed ruin of rubble.

And they're in the middle of it. Somehow, she and Ruby survived. They fell or rolled along with the rubble, but they're _alive._ How…?

"Jirachi," Ruby murmurs, reading the shocked expression on her face. "It saved us." Breathing heavily, he slumps against her shoulders.

Sapphire turns around, shifting Ruby's body into her arms. She trembles as she notices the fresh stains of blood soaking the back of his self-sewn shirt. "Ruby! Are you… what happened?"

Ruby winces as her fingers brush his back; he smiles weakly at her. "Archie… he threw you out the window, long before he collapsed the Tower. I jumped after you; you were unconscious, and he said… that you were brain-damaged—"

"Brain damage? Where would… wait, you mean from Gold's billiard balls?" she exclaims hotly. "Idiot, I've whacked you across the head before with a frying pan before, and you still seem to be functioning fine!"

"You've hit me with shoes before too," Ruby recalls. "And a fishing rod… with a Magikarp still flopping on the hook. And unusually powerful paper fans of doom."

"You see? Two billiard balls aren't going to finish me off," Sapphire finishes triumphantly, smacking him gently across the head for good measure. His white hat flies off, revealing his black hair.

Ruby laughs, then winces. "Sapph… I dove out the window after you… because I realized I couldn't live without you."

Sapphire's speechless, and not just because of his huge statement. By knocking off his hat, she's exposed the two large scars on the right side of his head. Claw marks that he received from an angry Salamance while protecting her when they were five years old.

He saved her once, and today, he saved her again. He caught her in midair and somehow laid her on the ground; and then he took the weight of a concrete wall for her.

Sapphire almost pulls Ruby into a hug, but he gasps in pain when her fingers grip the back of his shirt. "We need to find somebody else," she decides firmly, carefully settling Ruby onto his stomach on the ground. "Just stay right here; I'll—"

Ruby's hand curls around her ankle. "Don't," he says, just as firmly. "Stay here. With me."

Sapphire's heart stops for a second. Then, gently, she kneels next him, pulling him into her arms. "Ruby, I… Thank you for saving my life. Twice." She laughs. "I guess I can't live without you, either."

* * *

"Crystal!"

Using his mechanical arms, Emerald heaves a large plate of reinforced steel off his caretaker's body. She's lying on her back, and it looks like she tried to catch the wall—her arms are splayed across her torso, and one of them is twisted into a position it should not be in. Her chest still rises and falls with silent breaths, and Emerald gasps in relief. She's alive. She's not okay—her arms should _not_ be bent that way—but she's alive.

Emerald's surprised by his own lack of injury—after all, Archie had blasted him through a _wall_—but when he regained consciousness, he was relatively unhurt, lying on top of a pile of rubble.

Nothing but a powerful wish granted by Jirachi could have saved them from a collapsing fifty-story building.

Emerald kneels gently next to her, slipping his hands underneath Crystal's shoulders. He wonders why Jirachi spared him from injury while Crystal—

Crystal yelps suddenly, jerking back to life. The motion stirs her arms and she cries out again. "No…" she whimpers softly. "Don't hurt him…"

Emerald grasps her shoulder, steadying her. "I'm okay, Crystal. We're fine."

"We're… we're alive," Crystal sobs. "But I can't… I can't move my arms…"

Emerald extends his mechanical arms under her shoulders and props her up slowly. She bites her lips to suppress a scream and sits up without noise. True to her word, her arms hang limply the entire time, yet she can move her legs freely.

"It's just like when you were young," Emerald encourages. At the pokemon Academy in Johto's Violet City, Crystal often told the orphans stories about her youth—especially the experience in which her arms were broken by an angry pokemon, and her subsequent training at Mt. Mortar. "It's like the time when you spent two months at Mt. Mortar—"

"—using just my legs to catch and train pokemon," Crystal smiles weakly. "Thanks, Emerald. It just hurts. A lot."

"But we're alive!" Emerald supports. "Look—the entire Battle Tower collapsed, yet we're still alive. Gold or Ruby must have used Jirachi's final wish to save us all!"

Crystal nods slowly. "You're right… there's no way we'd still be alive… if the building collapsed on us."

"I woke up in a perfectly clear area," Emerald says. "Jirachi must have caught me and put me somewhere safe—and then I found you right away! And even though you broke your arms, you can still live fine without them. You're the only person I know who can do so many things with just her legs!"

Crystal laughs. "Thanks for your help, Emerald," she whispers softly.

"Only because you helped me so much," Emerald replies.

Crystal shifts her weight. "Can you call Parasee and Bonee? And you help too—I need you three to bind my arms. Parasee can use Stun Spore, and Bonee can provide binding materials."

Emerald grins and taps her Pokeballs, releasing her Parasect and Cubone. "We're alive, Crystal. Thanks to Jirachi, we're still alive. That's all that matters."

* * *

"Pika? Pi?"

"Chu! Chuchu!"

"Pichu!"

"You can't be serious…" Gold slowly cracks his eyes open. Sitting on his chest are two Pikachus—Red's Pika and Yellow's Chuchu—and his own recently hatched Pichu. "I… I can't breathe, guys!"

"Pi!" With worried squeals, the three yellow creatures bounce off Gold's chest.

He's alive. He's sitting a couple hundred feet away from the broken Battle Tower, and he's _alive_. Gold pushes himself into a sitting position. How… how is this possible? The last thing he remembers is slipping away from the petrified Silver, down the slope of the collapsing floor, and falling into a space where three floors were crumbling simultaneously. It was a long drop, and he was knocked unconscious when Red and Yellow's statue collided with his head.

Speaking of which… their petrified statue is right in front of him. It's been knocked over and buried under stone rubble, but even on his back, Red still faithfully carries a sleeping Yellow. Pika and Chuchu sit next to them miserably.

Gold taps his Pokeballs, releasing his Sudowoodo, Aipom, and Typhlosion. "Sudobo, Exbo," he calls. "Be careful—dig Red and Yellow out from the rubble." He turns to his loyal monkey-like pokemon and instructs, "Aibo, go find Silver… and Blue and Green. Call me when you find them."

His Aipom nods eagerly and scampers away, its tail probing the dusty ruins and searching for warmth.

Pika and Chuchu cry out happily as Red and Yellow's petrified forms are pulled from underneath the Battle Tower ruins without harm. However, Gold instantly notices that they're gray-colored; the purple powder he'd seen on them earlier has been washed clean from their bodies. If it was an identification powder from Oak, somebody forgot to buy a waterproof version.

"Pom! Aipom!"

With Sudowoodo's help, Gold hobbles towards Aipom's cry. It's Silver, lying beneath a tree. He's unharmed, though the pavement beneath him is cracked with his impact.

The bangle that used to be glued to Silver's wrist is gone.

That's not possible. The glue Gold used was concentrated Surskit syrup—it's meant to resist water damage and will last for at least three weeks. Unless Silver had been hit by a Waterfall or had his stone shirt broken, there's no way the bangle could have been torn off.

At this point, Gold realizes that there is an ocean's worth of water around him. Literally. It's on the floor; it's pouring from the Battle Tower ruins; it's hovering in the sky.

There's a wall of water hanging in the sky.

And it surrounds the entire perimeter of Battle Frontier.

Archie attacks with walls of water.

Gold dives for cover.


	4. lost - FUTURE

**Timeless - Chapter 2b - "lost" - FUTURE**

* * *

Something stirs in his chest. The sound of steady thumping gradually reaches Red's ears… it's his heart. His heart is beating steadily. His muscles tense, then relax. Weight rests in his arms, but he can easily hold it up. Smells begin to waft into his nose—old dust, dirty stone, the scent of another person. Heat. A sigh. Warm breath rustling through his hair. Sensations of cloth scraping against his bare chest.

Conscious suddenly slams into Red, and he almost stumbles.

Who… where… what happened?

Yellow rests in his arms. Her steady breath gently blows her blonde bangs out of her face. Her body is larger than he remembers, but then again, wherever they are, it's rather dark and he can't see much. Only two torches illuminate their location, revealing aged stone and spider webs. A cave?

It's cold. And Red's not wearing a shirt. And he can't exactly remember why. His memory is a haze of gray clouds; he can't access anything. He knows his name; he knows Yellow's name. He doesn't remember why he's carrying her, or how they were knocked unconscious, kidnapped, and stored at the end of a rock tunnel deep underground. That's what it feels like, at least; Red's a little freaked.

"Red?"

Joy blooms in Red's mind as Yellow stirs, regaining her consciousness. Her head rises, sending locks of blonde hair streaming to the ground. Red's never noticed the length of her hair before, since she usually tucks it underneath her cap—but it's got to reach past her waist.

"Yellow, it's me," he replies, kneeling on the ground and allowing her feet to contact the stone floor. "I'm not sure where we are, but we're safe."

"Where… Mewtwo?"

"Mewtwo? Who's—" Red pauses as memories begin to flood his brain. The genetic pokemon, created by Team Rocket from Mew's eyelashes. Fighting against Giovanni and the manipulated Deoxys. Saving Silver and reuniting with the pokedex owners. Confronting Sird and preventing her from recapturing Deoxys…

"We… we were petrified," Red recalls faintly. "Turned to stone."

"Deoxys," Yellow breathes, curling into Red. "It's… it's so cold here…."

Red pulls Yellow closer to his body; he's noticed that the temperature is lower in here, but he isn't that affected by it. Even without wearing a shirt, Red feels alright. Yellow, though, is still young, and her body's probably more sensitive. As he pulls her closer, something rubs off on his fingers—powder?

Light. Warmth. They need these. Leaning Yellow's weight against his torso frees one arm, which Red uses to search his belt for his espeon's pokeball; the sun pokemon could easily provide both light and warmth in this cold, dark scenario.

His belt… is still petrified. Red frantically feels all his pokeballs—each one is still stone. They're all still petrified, even with their owners' recoveries.

"Yellow, your pokemon…" Red chokes. His pokemon, his best friends… dead?

Yellow reaches into her dress pocket, pulling out a stone sphere. As she lifts it towards Red, her fingers glow and illuminate the ball. Yellow's breath quickens as she concentrates; the warm light spreads to the pokeball and races around it, restoring colored metal to the previously gray stone. Within a couple minutes, a flash of light forms into her raticate. It regards Red curiously, then sniffs at Yellow's face. She giggles and pushes it away. "Ratty," she murmurs. "It's good to see you again."

She de-petrified it. Not only can she read pokemon's minds and heal their injuries… she can un-petrify them! Red quickly pulls out the petrified pokeball of Vee, his espeon. "Yellow, can you—"

Her head drops and her neck remains limp. She's sleeping again. Healing Ratty took all her energy and she's lost consciousness. It makes sense; de-petrifying anything would be a miracle.

Shifting her weight in his arms, Red gets to his feet. He glances down at Ratty, who simply stares back at him.

"Well then, Ratty," Red grins. "Care to sniff the way out of here?"

* * *

Blue can't move.

She can't breathe either, but she finds that she doesn't need to. That in itself is a strange concept, but one that Blue simply accepts.

What she can't figure out is how she became a stone statue and why she's sitting at the bottom of the ocean.

Blue remembers dark beams of energy raining down around her at Vermillion City, courtesy of Sird (the bitch). After that, things are just a messy blur of memory: standing inside a wooden box, standing in a display room, falling. Darkness.

But now, for the first time in what feels like a very long time: flickering sunlight, cool currents, occasional flocks of pokemon that swim past and ignore her. It's a weird situation, but Blue has been in plenty of weird scenarios before. Hell, she was an icy villain at five years of age, and she struck terror into the hearts of Johto's cities for four years. So being buried so deep in dusty mud that only her petrified shoulders and her head stick out—it isn't _that_ strange. And she's slowly de-petrifying; every minute, she can feel the increased pressure of currents against her face; more cerulean colors floods into her previously black and white vision. The fact that she can see flickering sunlight probably means she isn't sitting very deep.

She'll figure that out later, though; what she needs to think about now is how to get to the surface as quickly as possible, as soon as she regains control of her body and her need for oxygen returns. Her eyes slide around, taking stock her possessions. Her petrified bag is still clipped around her waist. Her petrified pokeballs are clipped to her petrified belt. Her loose skirt rises in an upward current, revealing her petrified legs.

Of all things to de-petrify first…

A movement catches her eye—one of her pokeballs wiggles. It's still stony, but it must be in the same situation she's in: petrified but alive. With a lot of difficulty, Blue is rests her stiff arm on the ball; physical contact allows her to recognize it as her blastoise. Ocean situation, water-type pokemon. Perfect. She'll just use his Hydro Cannon to blast up to the surface and take breaths of fresh air.

After three minutes of working the rock-hard inflexibility out of her fingers and tapping the pokeball, Blasty finally emerges. The huge turtle swirls around the ocean floor landscape, kicking up tiny clouds of dust, before gazing at her in confusion. Blue still can't move or talk yet, but he understands soon enough, inserts his arms underneath her semi-solid arms, ensures that she's firmly attached to him, and begins to pull her from the mud. Huge dust clouds are instantly blown into the water, eliminating Blue's vision—but it's not like she needs it anyways.

She's just realized that her lungs want her to inhale oxygen. It's probably because she spent so much energy just trying to work the stiffness out of her arm.

As if reading her mind's sudden surge of panic, Blasty's cannons increase in intensity, pulling her free and launching both of them into the open space of the ocean. Blue opens her eyes the moment they pull out of the dust clouds. She needs to find the surface now so she can calm herself down. She can't drown now; she just woke up!

Stronger lights dance around her—closer. Her brain screams at her. She reflexively wants to suck in and fill her lungs, but only liquid streams around her and she keeps her mouth shut. Her eyes dart around, searching for the mirror-like surface of the water. All she can think about is breathing, gasping for air to fuel her burning yet still stiff muscles—

Green. She's distracted when she spots Green's petrified figure a couple hundred feet away. And holy Ho-oh, he's sitting on an earth vent that's boiling the water around it. It's a good thing he isn't alive yet, or else his skin would probably be peeling off in third degree burns. But, seeing as she just de-petrified, Green's probably going to become conscious as well. Good thing Blasty can tolerate extreme aquatic temperatures. Blue supposes that (after she gasps for breath) she'll have to go save him.

Which brings her back to her current panic state: her lack of air. She's going to lose consciousness soon if she doesn't inhale. And then she won't be able to tell Blasty to save Green, and Green's going to boil to death.

She needs to breathe.

And that's when Blasty rockets out of the ocean into the sky.

* * *

"Okay, this is really weird…"

"Rati?"

"…I can see why Yellow called you Ratty."

"Raticate."

Red peers up at the sign posted above the cave they've just exited: "The Fighter and the Healer: the Legend. No shoes."

According to the information plate to the right of the entrance, the legend involves some romantic story of two powerful lovers who, in a wish to be together forever, petrified themselves in an intimate position. Just reading it makes Red's face flush in embarrassment. That's not… no way that applies… Not truth…

Red shifts Yellow's position again. Her head keeps falling backwards too much, exposing her neck, so Red's trying to lean her head against his chest. It feels slightly strange to feel her warm breath directly on him, but at least she can't be decapitated as easily.

Also weird: his chest is coated in an obscene amount of purple dust; it's all over Yellow's clothes as well. Did somebody coat them with purple powder to identify them while they were petrified?

"What legend?" Red wonders, speaking to Ratty again. When he glances around, though, the Mouse pokemon is nowhere to be seen.

"You can't be serious…" somebody mutters behind him.

Red whirls around in surprise, yet with enough care to make sure Yellow's head doesn't flop over again. There's an old (rich) man leaning heavily on a marble staff behind him, with white facial hair that extends down to his waist. He's clothed in a clean, official gown and wears a fancy-looking ring on his right hand.

The elderly man leans forward on his staff and wheezes, "The Fighter and the Healer… powerful legend. And not just the silly love story that young kiddos love." His eyes glow with excitement as he leans even closer. "Powers. The Healer's ability to read pokemon's minds and calm their rage, and the Fighter: to control and manipulate them when some were too insane—"

"Pokemon aren't wild animals," Red interrupts defensively. "They're intelligent beings that we form lasting relationships with!"

It's the old man's turn to be irritated. "And what do you know, young man? Pokemon these days are feral creatures. If they haven't adapted to water, all they care about is stealing food from human settlements." He pulls up his sleeve slowly, revealing tiny scratches all over his left arm. "Ten years ago, I was attacked by a herd of ratatta—they never stopped biting or scratching me, even as I killed all of them."

Red's heart stops. Not possible. He… _killed_ pokemon?

Before Red can actually say anything, Yellow stirs in his arms. Her face buries into his chest and she coughs as she inhales some of the purple powder there. "Red…" she coughs quietly, and Red lifts her body closer to his ears.

"Don't worry, Yellow," he assures calmly. "We're outside now. We're safe."

She sniffs again. Coughs again. Sniffs even harder. Is she trying to choke herself? Red pulls her body away from his chest, but she just reaches over and touches the center of his chest, where his heart is, with her fingertips. Is she… reading him?

Red's panic at the random thoughts Yellow might find in his head is smothered when the old man gasps. "You're… you're not some cheap imitating tourists, are you?" the man stutters, his eyes opening wide.

Red flinches when he sees bloodshot conjunctiva—the whites of the man's eyes are highly irritated by some chemical, yet he can still see out of them.

The man continues, wobbling towards them and stabilizing himself with his cane. "You… the legend… you petrified yourselves with that purple toxin… but you have recovered! Impossible! Petrification is permanent… unless—" A gnarled hand reaches towards Red in his eagerness to hold onto them, and Red realizes that he's actually afraid of the man. Killing multiple Ratatta… hating pokemon… and talking about the Fighter, somebody who could _control_ pokemon…

"Rati?"

The man freezes as Ratty emerges from a stand of bushes, chewing happily on a couple Berries. And then he pulls a _gun_ out of his belt and aims.

Red doesn't even think—maintaining the position of Yellow's head directly on his chest, Red kicks straight up, knocking the man's aiming arm into the air. The bullet shot almost deafens him, and the stone ceiling above them cracks. Yellow cries out, grabbing Red's torso; Ratty darts in front of his owner in concern, baring his teeth.

"Ratty, we're leaving!" Red shouts, taking a step to the right. However, a gunshot directly in front of him stops him from continuing.

The old man leans on his staff, his gun aimed at Red. "No," he growls. "Don't leave. I need you. We need you. This town is in danger—"

"I can't control pokemon!" Red yells back. "Even if I could, I wouldn't! I know my pokemon and they understand me. That's why I'm so strong—we fight together! As friends!"

"Nonsense." The old man shifts his gun position—and shoots at Ratty.

* * *

Blue pushes herself away from Blasty and tries to tread water. It seriously feels like her limbs are caked in concrete, because it's so hard to move them. Or maybe it's just been a really long time since she's moved her muscles and they're out of shape. The water's rather cold as well, but she can handle it—she spent five years living with the Ice Man in his ice cave, wearing just a thin black dress. Frozen ocean and tired muscles? No problem.

Blasty tries to pick her up again, but she braces her feet against his belly and shoves off. "I need you to go down to the earth vent on the ocean floor and look for Green," she explains, floating on her back. "Bring him back up, okay?"

Blasty grunts in concern.

"Don't worry; if anything tries to eat me, I'll kick their butt up and down this ocean till you get back."

Blasty rolls his eyes before it sinks underneath the waves.

Blue waits a couple minutes, floating by herself in the ocean and touching all her petrified pokeballs. None of them show any signs of life.

Well, if something does decide to eat her, she'll just have to swim away as fast as she can. Or ride it till it accepts her. Or knock it around till _it_ runs away. Or kick it in the head so many times it becomes dizzy and drowns! Or—

Blue's train of thought collides with a wall of confusion as she watches a tangela swim past her. Its flattened blue vines move in regular patterns, waving like fins and propelling it forward. The vine pokemon doesn't even appear to have red-booted feet; it just has multiple tentacles modified into fins. Plus, it's a grass-type pokemon. What is it doing in the middle of the ocean?

Blue finds out when the tangela notices her. They stare at each other in confusion for a couple seconds; then the tangela swims over to her, wraps three vines around her arms, and pulls her towards its open mouth.

Dammit! Blue's lived in an ice cave; she's stolen millions of pokedollars from every city in Johto and Kanto, escaped with Silver, and continued to live the thief's life by tricking every stupid poketrainer in both regions. She's saved the world twice and made lasting friendships with all the powerful pokedex owners. So many opportunities to die and she survived, so dammit to a burning, fiery death if she dies today by being swallowed alive by a toothless, swimming tangela.

She draws her leg back, in and her most intimidating (fearful) scream, she kicks the monster ("pokemon," her imagined version of Red corrects) in the eye. It halts her progress forward… but then the tangela tosses her into the air, then uses its tentacles to drag her down and smash her against the ocean's surface. And then it does so again. And again.

When you're traveling that fast, water _hurts_.

But an icy frozen death works just as well. An ice beam encases the tangela completely and Blasty surfaces with a petrified Green seconds later.

Blue shakes the limp, frosty tentacles off her limbs and swims over as quickly as she can, which isn't very fast because her entire body aches. Blasty reaches her first, scooping her up before using its dual cannons to eject rockets of water forcefully and send them into the air.

"Thanks, Blasty," Blue murmurs weakly.

Blasty snorts haughtily.

"Yeah, yeah," Blue scoffs. "I can't kick a tangela's butt if I can't find it. No legs, you know."

* * *

In a bright flash of light, Red's aerodactyl explodes from its pokeball on Red's belt. Its rocky wings expand, bouncing the bullet away from Yellow's raticate. Red himself almost topples over as Aero generates powerful gusts of wind that knock the man to the ground; Ratty squeals as it positions itself in front of Red, steadying him.

Yellow groans as she passes out completely; her fingers slip from Aero's ball. She de-petrified Aero and saved them.

"Ratty! We've got to run! Get to the top of the mountain!" Red shouts, running away from the cave entrance and up the hill behind it. "Aero, keep on distracting him and join us later!"

Red sprints up the slope, with Ratty leading the way. Every once in a while, Ratty shakes its head and runs in another direction, indicating that the path is too difficult to travel. Red shifts Yellow's weight again, ensuring that her head is supported by his shoulder, and runs up the rocky mountain path. Even though he's been carrying Yellow for the past hour and sprinting for the past ten minutes, Red doesn't feel tired at all. His arms are just as strong as he lifts Yellow carefully; his muscled legs continue to push him up the hill. He's got plenty of energy, despite his recent emergence from his petrified state.

Yellow, on the other hand… her ability to de-petrify pokemon is astounding, but it comes at the cost of her conscious. Still, Red's amazed.

A couple minutes later, wind rolls over Red's bare shoulders as Aero lands in front in of him. Without speaking, Red slips Yellow onto his back, then crawls on top of her to pin her down. Ratty leaps on as well, and Aero airlifts them to the top of the mountain. Here, the entire location is composed of white rocks; some caves drop deeper into the mountain, and Red feels like he's been here before.

But it's not possible, because Mt. Moon was landlocked. It sat between Pewter and Cerulean City, surrounded by landmasses and forests. In their current location, they're surrounded by an ocean.

There's water everywhere.

They're on a tiny island that looks more like the top of a mountain in the middle of water. At the bottom of the mountain, instead of a sandy beach, only rough white stone slips into the waves. A small town lies halfway up the mountain, perched on cliffs and crags; its buildings are all made from white stones.

Red has traveled to many places—Kanto, Johto, Sevii Islands, even places in Hoenn. He knows the land, the cities, the ocean, and the islands.

But he doesn't recognize this place.

It's just a mountain in the middle of an ocean, as far as he can see. There's no large cloud cover indicating huge land masses—just plain waters and occasional rain storms.

Red travels down towards the city, returning Aero to his pokeball; no reason to scare the citizens with a rocky dragon. With just Yellow and Ratty present, he voices his thoughts.

"Where are we?"

"Middle of nowhere," a voice growls.

Red whirls around, just as a teenager brings a rock down onto his head. As he slumps to the ground, somebody pulls Yellow roughly out of his arms.

* * *

_A/N: Last update of 2012 ;) and the world hasn't ended! Happy New Year's eve!_


	5. young - PAST

**Timeless - chapter 3a - PAST**

Emerald sits back, satisfied at the final result. Crystal's arms have been paralyzed by her parasect's Stun Spore and entombed in a network of bone clubs and dried mud by her cubone. It looks like she's carrying a tablet on her back, but at least her broken arms have been immobilized.

Emerald's surprised when she pulls herself to her feet with little difficulty. He helps her, extending his mechanical arms to pull her up (because she's still twice as tall as he is). But only ten minutes ago, Crystal had been crying in pain.

Crystal grins softly. "Parasee's powders also have pain relievers in them—they help calm recently caught Pokemon, but they're great for my injuries too."

"That's really smart, Crystal!" Emerald says excitedly as he bounces in front of her. It's true; when she took care of the children at the Pokemon Academy in Violet City, Crystal always found some creative way to bring more light to their lives. Like kicking fruit out of trees for them to eat, or back-flipping off random walls for fun, or pausing during her cleaning duties to chase them with her broom. Or—

Emerald halts mid-thought. Terror briefly clogs his mental functions, but he shoves it back down in focused calculation.

An enormous wall of water ripples in front of him. It's incredibly wide, running as far as his eye can see—and it's so tall, it reaches _above_ them, into the sky. It's like a dome of water that encompasses the entire Battle Frontier. The thing is, even though it hangs above them, blocking out the sky, no water falls towards them. The gigantic wave surges and heaves and breaks, with small currents that smash open as they collide with an invisible surface.

"Emerald! It's Archie! Run!"

"No, Crystal!" Emerald shouts, ducking under Crystal's foot as she tries to push him to the side—even without hands, she can still drive people around. "Crystal, there's a wall keeping it from advancing." He points upward, where water swirls and _doesn't_ cascade towards them. "It can't even fall."

Crystal pauses, her pupils dilated in fear. "Are you sure? Wait—stop!"

Emerald sprints for the wave of water. As he draws closer, he can see the barrier even clearer; though the wall hides most of the sky from them, some of the Battle Frontier's nighttime lights are reflected off its surface.

The water roars in front of him. He's one foot away from violent gushes of water, but they explode in frothy foam and bubbles before they can harm him. Emerald reaches forward and touches the Barrier lightly, just to make sure. Several layers ripple at his contact—Barriers, Reflects, Light Screens, even a Mirror Coat.

"Smeargle!"

"Augh!" Emerald almost trips over his own two-foot-high platform shoes in surprise as the irritated painter pokemon squeaks at him. After a second of angry chatter, it looks back at the wall and concentrates; the barriers shiver and solidify.

Emerald glances to the right; hundreds of feet away, there's another smeargle pouring its energy into the wall. The left looks exactly the same. There are dozens of smeargle positioned around the Battle Frontier's perimeter, each maintaining the barriers that keep Archie's Energy Kyogre copy from drowning them all.

Emerald whirls around. "Crystal, are you seeing this?"

Crystal's nowhere to be seen.

* * *

"Help! Somebody, please help us!"

Crystal sprints faster. The tablet that binds her arms behind her back adds more weight to her body, but it's not that much to compensate for. It was only two years ago that she'd repeated her experience of losing her arms anyways, so it's a feeling she's almost familiar with. Still, the added weight makes it difficult for Crystal to run stably.

There—she spots Sapphire sitting on the ground, Ruby cradled in her arms. As Crystal draws closer, her heart stops. Both Sapphire and Ruby are wearing beautiful red shirts, but darker crimson stains their otherwise fashionable clothing.

"I'm not hurt!" Sapphire cries; Crystal's not so sure, since the front of Sapphire's shirt is splotched with red—but then Crystal spots the source of blood when Ruby tilts forward and exposes his back.

Crystal kneels next to Ruby and gently pulls his shirt up to expose his skin. It's rough—skin peeling, a large area of superficial abrasions and a few deep cuts oozing blood—but nothing too serious. Coating cool mud over the deeper wounds would help settle an overactive immune reaction, though.

"Parasee! Bonee!" she yells. Her parasect shuffles up to Ruby's body and exhales a gentle sedative sleep powder; cubone follows up by burping up some cool mud and splattering it on his back.

She turns to Sapphire. "What happened?"

"A wall fell on top of us," Sapphire says anxiously. "Ruby shielded me from it."

Ruby moans. He tries to say something, but all Crystal can hear is rattling breaths.

Both girls lean closer. "Ruby?" Sapphire breathes. "Please wake up, Ruby."

"Wh…" Crystal leans closer as Ruby swallows. "What…"

"You're fine, Ruby. We're here."

"What's…"

Ruby freezes as cubone belches more cold mud onto his back.

"My—my—What the hell is he doing?!" he screeches, bolting upright and knocking both girls over. Crystal's parasect promptly blasts him with a roiling cloud of sleep powder, and he collapses on top of Sapphire.

Crystal snickers as Sapphire uncomfortably juggles Ruby's limp body. "Thanks, Crys," Sapphire snorts, failing to reposition Ruby in a less awkward position. She settles for just wrapping her limbs around his dirty torso and resting his head on her shoulder. "You wanna keep spraying him?"

"He'll be fine for now," Crystal replies. "You just hold him; make sure he doesn't move until the mud dries. Carry him on your tropius and look for other people." Crystal points above them, where the wall of water continues to swirl and wash over a translucent barrier. "I think the Frontier Brains are holding Archie back—I'll look for them and see if I can help. You go find the Pokemon Center; see if there's any more medical help for Ruby."

* * *

Gold hides behind a still standing wall of the collapsed Battle Tower, breathing heavily. The walls of water surround the entire Battle Frontier—Archie's power is incredible and incredibly dangerous. Any wrong movements, and Archie could drown him instantly—so Gold plans on striking first with water-resistant Grass-type attacks. His sudowoodo and sunkern lie next to him, foliage glowing despite the darkness of the Battle Frontier.

Footsteps. Gold tenses.

They stop.

Golden sunlight explodes from his sunkern as it leaps high into the air; sudowoodo steps forward, instantly releasing a powerful solar beam at their approaching enemy. The figure screams in a voice is much too high to belong to Archie, a man who's got to be at least 30 years old.

Horrified realization swamps the mind-muddling adrenaline that had clouded his rationality earlier and he jumps out, shouting at his pokemon to stop—but something else hits him first.

A shoe. A red and white sneaker smashes into the top of his head, driving him face-first into the ground.

"Yeouch!"

"_What the hell do you think you're doing?_" Crystal screeches.

Slowly, Gold tries to peel his face off the rocky floor, but Crystal slams her foot directly on his back and pins him down. From his humiliating position on the dirt, Gold mumbles something about just maybe mistaking the figure for Archie and that, seeing as they all fell out of the collapsing Battle Tower and survived, they all might be running a little high on adrenaline—

"Numbskull!" she hisses. "Emerald's only eleven years old!"

"Crys!" Gold snaps, rolling free from underneath her foot and springing to his feet. He points upwards and exclaims, "That wall of water—"

"—does belong to Archie, but the Frontier Brains are holding him back," Crystal finishes. "Sapphire just called me. She dropped Ruby off at the Pokemon Center and the Nurse Joy told her what was going on."

* * *

An hour later, after receiving proper treatment and casting of Crystal's broken arms, ensuring that Ruby is settled and safe, and Emerald's slight burns from barely dodging Gold's solar beam are bandaged, the four young Pokedex owners meet the leader of the Frontier Brains in front of the PokeCenter.

"We're saving the world." Greta smiles, indicating at the dome of water that completely traps them within its flowing layers. "By trapping the Energy Kyogre to the Battle Frontier and its immediate surroundings, we're giving the regions—Hoenn especially—more time to evacuate to higher grounds."

Sapphire shifts her feet in worry, but Gold outright yells, "But if we're keeping it here… won't we drown at some point?"

"We've got two walls of barriers containing the Energy Kyogre: one to keep the water out of the Battle Frontier, and the other to keep most of it from spreading outwards. The problem is, Energy Kyogre is always generating more water and increasing the internal water pressure… so every day, we've got to release a certain amount of water—"

Fretfully, Sapphire blurts, "Littleroot Town—"

"It's evacuated," Crystal reports, tapping her Pokegear. "I've been in contact with Professor Oak. He knows your dad, Sapphire—Professor Birch was his name, right? Oak said the population relocated to Verdanturf Town, which sits on Mt. Chimney."

Sapphire sighs in relief. Wally lived there; he said the town was green and fresh due to its high altitude. Safe from the ocean.

Greta continues, "Even though we don't have a lot of control over the situation, it's better than nothing. However, the most vital information that we've discovered is that Energy Kyogre seems to have a certain amount of health—so by attacking it, it spends more time regenerating itself—"

"—and less time generating water," Emerald finishes quickly.

"So that's you need us for?" Gold exclaims, releasing his entire team—an aipom, a politoed, a typhlosion, a sunkern, a sudowoodo, and a togepi. "To keep attacking Archie's Energy Kyogre?"

Sapphire's a little surprised at the togepi; most of the spike ball pokemon her father had studied were happy, cheerful babies. Gold's little togepi looks downright violent, with an apparently permanent frown etched into its tiny face.

Greta nods. "We currently have four Frontier Brains attacking—Spenser and Nolan are managing the refugees here." She points at Gold. "We need all the help we can get. Can you help us in attacking the Energy Kyogre?"

Gold poses. "I've saved the world once—I can do it again, no problem." He and his party run where Greta directs them—behind the Battle Tower ruins.

"The rest of you," Greta questions, "are still able to fight, right? We'd like to arrange a schedule of attackers—"

"I'll organize that," Crystal volunteers. "I'm incredibly organized. Cleaning a school, taking care of children, working with Professor Oak in catching every Pokemon species living in Johto—that's given me the skills to work with large amounts of people."

"We'll fight," Emerald declares. "Just tell us when."

* * *

_A/N: Short chapter, but the next chapter (told from Red, Yellow, Blue, and Green's perspective) is definitely going to make up for it._


	6. young - FUTURE

**Timeless - chapter 3b - FUTURE**

* * *

Darkness threats to swallow Red whole. His head is pounding. Somebody hit him in the head with metal and it hurts like hell, but somehow he's still conscious.

Yellow!

They took Yellow. They attacked him to kidnap her. Rage boils through his blood, numbing his pain and channeling strength into his limbs. He's… he's got to…

With energy coursing through his veins, Red leaps to his feet. His vision momentarily sways and blurs, but his attention focuses when he catches sight of somebody rushing at him threateningly.

He's still disoriented though and tastes blood when a fist smashes into his face. Stars explode across his darkened vision, but he manages to wrap both hands around the arm attached to the fist and heave it over his shoulder. The teenager screams as his body follows the arm over Red's back and impacts the rocky ground. Only when Red's knee drives its way into his chest does the screaming stop.

Red stands still, his entire body shaking. Energy hums in his blood. It limits his capacity to think and rationalize things; he acts spontaneously, attack after attack until the enemy is incapacitated. A tiny, tiny part of his mind quivers in horrified shock at the sight of the motionless body, but the larger portion ignores it.

Yellow.

The sun has set and the landscape is darkening quickly. The strange energy that drives him to fight, defeat, overpower—it limits some of his senses while enhancing his strength. Still, in the darkness of twilight, in the silence that reigns before the nocturnal world begins, Red senses Yellow.

Yellow, screaming.

He runs, barely thinking. Each pounding footstep matches the pounding of blood through his heart, in his head, fogging his vision in red fury. He loses his balance once but recovers almost instantly. It's dark and he can't see anything, but he _knows_ where to go. To the left, down the mountain. He leaps off a cliff and rolls when he hits the ground to diffuse shock, springing to his feet and ready to fight.

A tent, a fire, and two boys with firearms on watch. They gasp when he enters their vision, readying their weapons.

A strained moment passes, in which manic energy bubbles beneath the surface of Red's cold exterior. He clenches his fists; his muscles tense, ready to spring into action immediately. He can _feel_ his heart pumping blood steadily through his limbs, strengthening them. Crimson hazes his vision, obscuring the enemy.

They attack first.

The muscles in his legs launch Red impossibly high in the air. He barely hears gunshots rattling beneath him; all he can hear are Yellow's screams echo in his head, driving him even further into a furious frenzy. He twists around in midair as he begins to descend towards an opponent, building momentum in a horizontal rotation before transitioning into a vertical drive of his heel straight into the enemy's skull.

The enemy doesn't even have time to scream.

A small grin unconsciously creeps its way onto Red's face as he lands on the rocky terrain. Behind him, the limp body crumbles.

The second teenager hesitates fearfully, but Red doesn't wait. He rushes at the enemy, skillfully dodging the two fired shots. The boy screams, drops the weapon, and tries to run. A jab at the boy's tailbone momentarily disables his legs, and he falls defenseless to the ground. Red leaps atop him and lands a solid punch to the kidney, causing the boy to scream not out of fear but excruciating pain.

"Stop! Stop right now or I'm g-going to cut her throat."

The shaky voice originates from the last teenager, who stands at the entrance of the tent. Yellow is slumped in front of him with a knife held to her neck; she's unconscious, but every couple seconds she winces and cries out in pain.

A snarl bubbles its way out of Red's throat as he bares his teeth. Rage threatens to consume him, trying to goad him into running straight into the fray, consequences be damned. Attack. Fight. Damage. Disable. Defeat.

Only this time, the consequence is Yellow's imminent death. That's the only thing that holds him back, even as the strange energy threatens to sweep him away in a torrent of anger.

Dimly, the last remnant of his rationality fears his sudden change. His body is uncontrollable. He's conscious and aware of every moment _but each action is not his own_. The strength that allows him to shatter bones, the knowledge of attacks that deal maximum damage, the ease of movement as he slides from one technique to the next—it's as if another person's consciousness has taken over his body.

In that brief moment of internal contemplation, thick, dark liquid squirts across the battlefield and splashes straight into the teenager's eyes. He screams, dropping Yellow to wipe the purple acid off his face. Steam rises from his skin as it burns. As soon as he stumbles away from Yellow's prone body, a weepinbell drops from a tree and envelops his head and upper torso.

With Yellow no longer in immediate danger, Red allows the strange energy in his body to devour him. Power surges through his body, giving him the strength to protect Yellow. Protect his friend. The teenager who held Yellow captive may out of the battle—his body is slowly disappearing into the venomous maw of the weepinbell—but there are still threats.

Movement. A figure runs into the clearing, mouthing words that Red can't understand. Danger! Attack. Disable. Defeat. Protect Yellow. Yellow, hands clasped to her heart as if something's embedded in there.

Kill, if that's what it takes.

Red roars, swinging a fist. The lithe figure dives out of the way, silky brown hair flying around her face. Her mouth moves but Red can't hear anything. She's too close to Yellow for comfort and Red has to drive her away. He crouches, tensing up every leg muscle, and springs into the air, flipping over the enemy and landing directly in front of Yellow. He snarls again, baring his teeth.

The opponent doesn't appear intimidated. She doesn't back off; her mouth just keeps moving. Unacceptable; if she refuses to leave, then Red can only disable her. Make sure she never pursues them by eliminating her.

A light voice drifts into his head. "She needs help! I'm trying to help, stop fighting me—"

Fight.

His punch lands this time, but she blocks the blow from denting her chest with crossed forearms; nonetheless, the force sends her sliding backwards. She backflips away to avoid his second attack and slaps her waist as she soars through midair. Brilliant red flashes explode around her, forming into pokemon by the time she's landed on the ground again. Immediately afterwards, powdery explosions shroud them from sight. No matter; Red can still sense their positions, and he's confident that the pokemon are weak enough that he could knock out each in a single blow.

He dashes straight into the green powder and punts the first pokemon, a small yellow and brown seed, hundreds of feet off the mountainside. He flattens a small mushroom with a pokeball design on its cap by simply stomping on it while using his fist to smack a blue ball with three cotton puffs into the ground; it squeaks before its cotton puffs explode into more green powder.

Instantly, he feels sluggish. Tired.

Absolutely exhausted.

And before he knows it, he's asleep.

* * *

_Save them… Deoxys, save them…_

_Red is in danger?_

Deoxys' appendages touch each of Mewtwo's crystals. Its eyes are closed as it reads the genetic pokemon's final thoughts.

_Their DNA… damaged… save them all._

Deoxys, the DNA pokemon. Able to modify its own DNA and shift between four different forms whenever it desires.

_Save them, Deoxys. The ones who freed us… save them._

* * *

Yellow gasps as she regains consciousness. She's sitting in a bed. It's a really nice bed, but it's not home. It's not Viridian Forest.

She has no idea where she is.

How'd… how'd she get here? She remembers darkness. The smells of a cave. Red supporting her with his—

Yellow flushes in embarrassment. She may or may not have enjoyed sleeping against Red's chest, cradled in his arms.

She tries to get up and gasps as her chest explodes in pain. It hurts. It feels like her heart is on fire and each beat provokes hot pain. She tries to stay quiet, hold it all in, but she can't hold back a sob. It just…

"You're awake!"

A girl. There's a girl standing in the doorway to the room. She walks over slowly and sits down on Yellow's bed. Brown, silky straight hair, glasses.

"I'm Annie," the girl whispers.

The pain in Yellow's chest slowly dies away, but the panic it caused still remains. "Where am I? What happened? Where's Red?"

"Shhh," the girl soothes. "This is my house. You were kidnapped and your friend… fought off your kidnappers. When I tried to help, he attacked me."

"No," Yellow denies instantly. "R-R-Red wouldn't do that."

Annie purses her lips, hesitating for just the briefest moment before murmuring, "He disabled my sunkern, foongus, and jumpluff with one hit each."

"He's... he's a fighter," Yellow defends weakly. "He even spars with his poliwrath sometimes. But he's one of the nicest people I know!" She blushes slightly. "He wouldn't attack you."

Annie looks at her uneasily. "So it would seem," she murmurs softly. "He's fine now… but before I knocked him out, he was… he was so _angry_. And yeah, I get that. Those teenagers who kidnapped you are disgusting people and they got what they deserved. But… Red didn't stop with them; he just kept attacking when I took out the last teenager. He… he seemed more pokemon than human."

As if in reaction to this statement, pain flares in Yellow's chest. Her head throbs; her heart flutters. She gasps for air.

"Your chest…" Annie says. "I saw one on him too. Is it supposed to be there?"

Yellow glances downwards—she's wearing a different shirt, one that isn't coated with purple powder. She pulls the soft white cloth away… and just stares.

Her body's a bit older than she remembers. She doesn't remember her chest ever being that large…

But even more startling than that: there's a purple crystal embedded in her skin, right where her heart is. It doesn't stick out very much; it looks more like a thin badge—but every time her heart beats, particles of light churn within the crystal.

Thoughts. Mewtwo's last thoughts echo through her mind, infused within the crystal. Mewtwo and Deoxys. Pain and anguish. Sacrifice and death. Power and determination. Strength and spirit.

That's the sensation she's interpreted as pain. What they did for her… What they did for the world. Tears slip down her cheeks as she brushes her fingertips across the crystal.

Yellow light explodes from the contact. Warmth floods through her body, bringing life to every muscle, every nerve, every inch of skin. She gasps as heated winds whirl around her, healing every bruise and cut and scratch. Purple powder connects with her, imparting just one memory:

_Deoxys—give her your life._

* * *

The cold ocean wind streams over Blue as Blasty surfs through the ocean. It's really cold.

It's refreshing.

After living four years of her childhood with a mask of ice concealing her identity, Blue's still excited when she feels sensations. Because, really, having ice on your face for that long makes you feel next to nothing.

The first time she saw Silver's uncovered face and his silver eyes, she was exhilarated. And finding out that her own eyes were blue? Cool. And the sunlight warming her face! People (like Red) recognizing her facial features! People (like Red) getting mad at her for fooling them! Even now, wind is precious. Even if it is cold. Not quite as cold as ice, but still cold.

She can handle it.

"Ugh…"

Cue for another (cute) fooled boy to interact with—Red's rival with a nature on the other side of the spectrum: calm, serious, and constantly focused. Never as wild or stressed or angry or exuberant as Red; Green's just strong and determined. A lot like Silver, the kid she considers her little brother.

Except this guy... well, she has mixed feelings about him.

Blue crawls over to Green, making sure that she doesn't slip off Blasty's rock-hard shell. There's a large groove in the bottom half of Blasty's shell that she strapped Green into; now that he's flexible, she should be able to slip in next to him. "Finally awake, Sleeping Beauty," she grins.

Green is curled up at the bottom of the groove, shivering violently. His clothes are soaked and his teeth chatter loudly. Blue carefully climbs down into the groove, promptly straddles his lap, and begins to pull the hem of his shirt up to his head.

His arm swiftly smacks hers away. "Wh-wh-what do you th-think you're d-d-doing?" Green stutters. He takes in his immediate surroundings, only a flicker of surprise showing on his face.

"I grew up in an ice cave; I know how to stay warm," Blue says, running a hand through his sopping wet hair; she takes a second to marvel at the fact that his hair still stubbornly remains in clumped spikes before flicking droplets of water into his face."You'll never warm up in wet clothes." She pushes up on his shirt again, and, after a pause, he lets her. She continues, "I've got a waterproof blanket, and my body can transfer heat to yours. Just try to regulate your breathing and relax."

"Y-y-you're kidding," Green snorts. "You're g-going to sleep on t-t-top of me?"

Blue doesn't answer. She's too busy staring at the purple gem embedded in Green's chest.

She blinks. A small, flat surface that is definitely not skin sits right where his heart is. Pulling Green's shirt up and over his face so that he can't see it, Blue brushes her fingertips over the crystal.

It's hot. So hot, it burns. She jerks her fingertips away.

Shivers wrack Green's body again, so Blue finishes pulling off his shirt. She deposits the soaking shirt in her bag, pulls out a small towel, and lets him rub his own torso dry as she digs around her pack for her blanket. Upon finding it, she snuggles onto Green's chest and wraps the blanket around the both of them, just like she used to do with Silver when he was younger.

She notes that the rest of Green's torso (minus the strange crystal in his chest) _is _cold, but again, Blue's lived in an ice cave for four years.

"Pesky girl," Green mutters, trying to adjust his position around the girl hugging his chest; Blue just smirks as his cheeks flush red.

If anything, this ought to heat him up fast.

* * *

"So… you said your name is… Red."

"Yeah."

"It's not a very… common name. Hell, I've known more guys called _Ash_. You're the first _Red_ I've met."

"How is Dani more normal? I thought it was a boy's name."

"Technically, it's Daniela. What's your name short for—Redecorate?"

Red pulls at his shirt and jacket. They originally belonged to the men who attacked him and Yellow, until Annie stole it from them. Great fits, but a little too warm and sort of smelly. "Hey, I didn't choose the clothes," he retorts. "I was unconscious."

"Annie acts first, thinks later," Dani tells Red as she prepares food. "I have to admit, I don't quite believe her story of you being a violent rage monster attacking her right off the bat. She tends to go over the top with everything. Plus," she ruffles his hair on her way over to the pantry, "You just don't seem like that kind of guy. At all."

Red glances out the house's window; the city lies a mile away downhill, its lights illuminating the white cliffs of the mountain. "Why did you choose to live so far out of town?"

Dani snorts. "A couple of years ago, something in the water killed off most of the town's female population. Some old people say the Ocean saw the corruption of the young men, so it offed all the women in mercy." Dani snorts. "Great blessings to us survivors."

"You talk about the ocean as if it's… living."

Dani's eyes flash. "When somebody tries to leave the island, their body usually washes up on shore the next day. Electronic signals and radio waves can't pass over it. We're completely isolated and we have no way of reconnecting with the rest of the world at large… crazy old people just blame it on their legendary Ocean god that's trying to drown the entire world."

Legendary. It reminds Red of the old man they met outside the cave they woke up in. "Speaking of legend…" Red transitions awkwardly, "…we met one of those crazy old people. He told us something about a Fighter and a Healer…?"

Dani flips black hair over one shoulder and grins. "The lovesick version or the conquer-the-world version? Either way, it's complete bullshit—but it still has a rabid following of devoted worshippers here. They even drilled a temple into the mountain and sculpted a replica of the statues."

Red is thoroughly confused. People… worship them? How long have they been petrified? And where are Green, Blue, and Silver? Aren't they included in the story?

Before he can reply, though, Dani continues to talk while chopping up vegetables. "It's actually pretty stupid. I can see how some guy with great battle techniques and some girl with a lot medical knowledge could have become so famous. But it's stupid when people believe that, by building a legend around those people, the Fighter and the Healer will somehow become reincarnated, defeat the Ocean god, and save us all from drowning in fifty years. At least, with the rate that the ocean's rising, that's how soon it'll be before this town's underwater."

"Dani?!" a girl shouts from upstairs. "Something's happening and I don't why!"

Dani tucks her knife into a sheath on her leg and charges up the stairs. As Red leaps up the steps after her, warm winds push against his clothes… and in return, his heart flares with so much heat, Red stops in his tracks.

"Yellow!"

"What's happening?"

"She touched that crystal on her chest!"

Red can't hear anything after that—warmth is spreading through his body as well, setting it on fire. He feels… invincible. He… he actually wants to fight. He wants to—

"Red!"

A hand reaches under his shirt and touches not his chest, but a solid object that feels like it's… embedded in his chest. The warmth in his body switches in sensation, from a hot-blooded desire to punch something into a warm, soothing… healing. The bruises on his face, the pounding of blood in his ears, the wound on the back of his head—they all slip away, leaving Red feeling refreshed.

When he opens his eyes, Yellow's standing in front of him.

She looks a lot different from the small girl he remembers. For one, she's tall enough to look at him without having to bend her neck. He's so used to being over a foot taller than she that he almost doesn't recognize her—but who else has such bright amber-colored eyes?

With her increased height, Red notices a second surprise almost directly afterwards…

She has a noticeable chest. Very—

Annie slaps him upside the head. "What the hell are you looking at?!"

Yellow blushes and pulls away. "I'm… I'm glad you're okay," she mumbles.

"You—" Lost for words (she was screaming… now she's healing him?), Red just pulls her into a hug. "You're not hurt?"

"Deoxys. He gave me—"

The entire house shudders as somebody smashes a window downstairs. "Fighter! Healer! Please join us—"

Red pulls Yellow the rest of the way up the stairs; he recognizes the voice. It's the old man, the pokemon hater, who had confronted them outside the temple and held them at gunpoint.

A huge muk materializes through a flash of light; Annie whispers to it, and Red's jaw drops as the sludge pokemon _dissolves_ into runny purple water and splashes down the stairs, melting the carpet as it flows past. Meanwhile, Dani pulls a gun that's larger than she is out of a closet. "This is the part where you run from the crazy people," she says simply.

"What about you?" Yellow gasps.

Red pushes the pokeball containing his aerodactyl into Yellow's hands. "Yellow, get on Aero and fly out of here." His blood boils as he growls, "I'll stay back and fight."

Annie smacks him in the head again. "You get out of here too," she barks. "Once the mayor sees you leave, he'll follow. We'll hold him back as long as we can, and then we'll disappear."

"How—"

"We know have a couple secret bases scattered around the mountain. Don't worry about us. If the mayor catches up with you, you can fight him then. But knowing him, he'll probably shoot you with a tranquilizer first—"

Gunshots begin to pepper the walls as Dani shoves Red into a room. "Get!" she yells. Men scream as watery poison splashes around below them, dissolving plaster.

Yellow drops Aero's ball, releasing a gigantic rock dragon that puts a hole in the floor and takes out one wall by spreading his wings. Red scoops up the pokeball before leaping onto Aero's back; Yellow clambers on behind him, wrapping her arms around his waist.

Aero inhales, then blasts the roof open with a brilliant hyper beam. Rubble rains around them as the aerodactyl spreads his wings as wide as he can, tenses, and launches himself into the night sky. Seconds afterwards, Yellow's omastar appears, shooting an ice beam to counter an oncoming blast of water.

"Don't use up all your energy!" Red shouts to Yellow as she shouts directions; he doesn't know if he can hold onto her and maintain a firm grip on the rocky dragon. Yellow's voice transitions to a strangled yelp of surprise when Aero folds his wings underneath his body, darting down the steep mountain and putting more distance between them and the conflict.

They blast over the illuminated city, tearing up delicate festive "_Welcome, Fighter and Healer!_" decorations with fierce winds. Citizens scream—

"Put it out! Make sure it doesn't explode!" Yellow shrieks. Red turns as her omastar unleashes an incredible amount of water into a _rocket; _smoke rises from its launch point on the protective wall at the city's perimeter.

"What the hell were they thinking, knocking us out of the sky?" Red yells angrily as the missile hits the street beneath them, deactivated and encased in ice.

"PLEASE DO NOT LEAVE THE ISLAND," a voice yells over a loudspeaker. "DANGER AND DEATH AWAITS ALL WHO INTERACT WITH THE OCEAN. We repeat, please do not…"

By then, the crashes of the ocean's waves against the sides of the mountain have drowned out the city's noises. The darkness of night engulfs them as they disappear from sight.

* * *

Blue awakes suddenly as Green pushes her off his body. "You fell asleep," he mutters.

Blue rubs her eyes, but she still can't see much—the sun must have set while she was unconscious (and sleeping on a very warm body—hehe). "So I did," she yawns. "Well, it is nighttime."

Green turns away from her. If Blue didn't know any better, she'd say that Green's actually nervous. That's good: keeping him on his toes so he doesn't have time to second-guess her actions towards him. Also, because she's not even sure what her actions mean.

"Your body… it's cold," he mumbles.

"And there's a small crystal stuck in your chest," Blue replies nonchalantly. "I was sleeping on top of it. It's pretty hot."

Green checks immediately, tapping his hand against the hard surface shielding his heart. "The hell…?"

Blue grins foxily as she pulls the neckline off her shirt down, showing just a little bit of cleavage.

Green shields his eyes. Oh yeah, that's definitely throwing him a curve. "_What are you doing_—"

"Fine, I won't show you," Blue giggles, releasing her shirt. "But I checked, and I have the same badge of honor stuck in my chest too. I tried pulling it out—not a good idea. But it's pretty, and it beats with my heart, so I think I'll just leave it in there."

Green continues to run his hands over his chest's crystal. "Strange," he murmurs. "What happened?"

Blue groans. "That's what I was going to ask you, Great Thinker. Where the hell did these purple crystal badges come from? Why does your make your body hot, while mine, according to you, makes my body cold?"

Green stares at her; even in the darkness of night, Blue swears she can see the bright green colors of his eyes. "What about temperature?"

"You said my body's cold. I _am_ partially adapted to ice; I spent four years wearing it as a mask—and hey, no permanent facial nerve damage. You, on the other hand… when I woke up, you were burning up." She smirks at him. "Hot." Green mutters some other derogatory nickname for her; Blue just smiles and continues, "So what do you think?"

"I don't know," Green replies simply. "I don't remember much. Vermillion City. Giovanni and Silver. Deoxys. Mewtwo deflected Sird's attack into us." He pauses. "And then I wake up and you're pulling off my shirt."

"It's still wet."

"I want it back," Green growls quietly.

"I like it when you're hot," she smirks, tossing him the blanket. "But that'll stop the moment you put a wet shirt on. Wear this."

Green wraps the blanket around his body. "Annoying girl," he mutters.

"Okay, Almighty Thinker, let me tell you what I think," Blue redirects back to subject. "If you touch your belt, you'll notice most of your party are still petrified. Why? Because they don't have our awesome badges of honor embedded into their chests. We do. That's what de-petrified us, I'm thinking."

Green taps the last ball on his belt. In a flash of light that reveals a smile on Green's face, charizard materializes above them.

"Okay, so that happened to me too," Blue continues as Green greets his starter. "So... Maybe it's because they're our starters; we're emotionally connected to them. Blasty was the only one who responded when I touched his ball…" She runs her fingers over her belt and is startled when one shakes. A second later, her wigglytuff pops out.

"Jiggly!" Blue cries, hugging her first pokemon. "I… should change your name. You're not a Jigglypuff anymore…"

Charizard taps a claw against Green's crystalline badge of honor in question. Green sighs and rubs a hand through his hair, replying, "I really don't know."

"Maybe the whole you're-hot-and-I'm-cold thing—that's something we adapted to over time," Blue proposes. "When I picked you off the ocean floor… you were sitting on an earth vent—a crack in the world's crust that goes straight down to the magma layer. You were sitting in boiling water for who knows how long."

Green nods slowly. "So how long have we been petrified?"

"Let's go find people and ask," Blue shrugs. "Okay, Blasty? Can you find us a place where there isn't any ocean?"

Blasty grunts.

"Blue."

"What?" Blue glances around, then up—Green is now sitting on top of his charizard ten feet above them, without her blanket. The fire dragon's tail flame flickers softly, illuminating Green's bare torso. Blue unconsciously takes a mental snapshot.

"Give me my shirt back," Green says, dead serious.

"Oh, fine," Blue sighs, digging in her bag for the black shirt. "Jiggly… erm, Wiggly? Could you fly this over to Green?"

Wiggly nods; with three large breaths, she expands until she's as large as Blasty. Slowly, she floats up to Green and charizard.

Blasty suddenly squawks in panic and swerves to the right, away from Green. Blue almost loses her balance, dropping to her knees and grasping the bumps on Blasty's shell. The once-calm ocean around them froths violently, churning in foamy waves.

In a devastating explosion, a forceful pillar of water slams into charizard's belly. Green and his fainted dragon are launched hundreds of feet into the night sky.

"Green!" Blue screams; Blasty aims his water-shooting cannons downwards, grabs Blue with his limbs, and propels the both of them into the sky. Above her, Green flails and tosses a tiny object; seconds later, his charizard is reabsorbed into his pokeball. Green catches it again as Wiggly sweeps him into her arms.

"What the hell is that?" Green yells. Scratches on his chest slowly ooze blood.

Below them, a mountain of water swells up ominously from the ocean.


	7. touched - PAST

******Timeless - chapter 4a - **PAST

* * *

"Professor Oak!" Crystal almost cries in relief when her sixth attempt at contacting her adviser's Phone succeeds. "How is situation in Johto?"

The pokemon researcher's expression is grim. "Communications between regions are failing due to flooding; the interaction between Kanto and Johto is actually increasing due to Mt. Silver's refugee camp allowing citizens from both regions. As far as I know, casualties have been minimized, thanks to your actions at the Battle Frontier."

"What about Violet City? Do you know anything about the children's school?"

Professor Oak's face wrinkles in confusion. "Excuse me?"

"Earl's pokemon Academy."

Oak's face clears. "The place where you used to work, right?"

Crystal nods. "Have the children been evacuated?"

"All of the children were with their families at the time of the weather announcement, so we can only assume that they were evacuated as well…" Oak says slowly.

Crystal stares at him in bewilderment. This is Kanto's and Johto's pokemon expert! He _knows_ every single detail of over 200 pokemon, from size to behaviors to common personalities, from breeding times to years of maturation and usual diets. Professor Oak is not a man who forgets; he remembers _everything._ He's a researcher who doesn't need electronic storage to retain information. So how could he forget…

"Professor Oak," Crystal restates cautiously. "Part of my job at the pokemon Academy was caring for the ten orphans that _lived_ there… That's how I knew Emerald."

Professor Oak looks… confused. But he nods anyways, assuring her, "They were among the first to be transported to Mt. Silver."

Crystal doesn't feel relieved at all.

* * *

Gold stumbles as a mechanical arm punches him in the back. "Your time's up," Emerald grunts. "I'll take over from here."

"Okay. Thanks, kid," Gold grins, returning his exhausted party to their pokeballs.

Emerald just glares at him before releasing his party. Gold sighs internally; the kid's been angry at him ever since he mistook Emerald for Archie and ordered a solar beam fired at him.

Yeah, it was reckless and stupid—mistaking the tiny kid for a man in an armored suit. Even Crystal won't stop kicking him in the face. And though she never actually makes contact, just the sight of her shoe racing at his nose is enough to make him want to smack her back with his billiard cue. The only thing that's stopping him is the fact that she broke her damn arms. It's like smacking a puppy. A ferocious, raving puppy that wants to take off your face every time it sees you.

There are about a hundred people staying at the Frontier's PokeCenter. It's a large building built largely unaffected by the flooding and the collapse of the Battle Tower, and it has enough bedrooms to house at least two people per room.

And that's why Gold and Emerald are rooming together.

It's frustrating, having a silent roommate. Gold has offered to hang out with the kid, teach him some tricks with the billiard cue or train their pokemon together for experience. Dammit, he even apologized! Emerald just ignores him.

Gold pauses in the courtyard in front of the Center; situated in the center of the courtyard are the grey statues of his petrified senior—Yellow sleeping in Red's arms, Green in a defensive stance, Blue standing in front of a crouching Silver.

Silver.

Gold stops in front of his rival-turned-close-friend. He, Silver, and Crystal—together with the Kanto Pokedex owners, they saved the world when they recruited hundreds of pokemon to calm a frenzied Ho-oh and Lugia. That was the moment when they established a strong friendship based off strength and trust.

And dammit, even when Silver's pokemon weren't as experienced as Gold's, Silver could think fast. Gold leapt into situations with nothing but luck sometimes, but Silver could evaluate and execute the most efficient course of action with incredible speed. The guy was just brilliant.

And now he's petrified. Not dead, but pretty much. He doesn't breathe, move, or talk.

Does he think?

Gold remembers slipping the Ultimate Move bangle on Silver's wrist. A minute afterwards, the bangle glowed; that's got to mean something. Somehow, even in his petrified state, Silver _knew_ an object of power had been literally glued to his hand.

Did he feel Gold's palm wrapped around his warm, stone fingers?

Hesitantly, Gold rests his hands on Silver's. Silver is still as warm as ever. As a petrified statue, Silver doesn't live in the traditional sense. No breathing, eating, moving.

Only endless sleep.

But even unconscious people think. Right now, does Silver's brain register touch? Speech?

Impulsively, Gold touches Silver's forehead. People always wake up when you hit them in the head. And here, Gold's closer to Silver's mind.

"Silver?" he whispers. "Com'on, man. Wake up."

Nothing.

"We need you guys," Gold murmurs again. "Just wake up."

No strange thoughts enter Gold's mind.

But he does hear an awkward cough. He whirls around, just in time to notice a frantic Sapphire scampering away.

"Hey!" Gold yells, realizing that he _is_ standing a bit closer to Silver than necessary. "This is not what it looks like!"

Sapphire stops and whirls around. …Is she giggling? "I don't know what you're talking about. What do _you_ think it looks like?"

Gold slides a hand down his face in frustration. "Nothing! Just forget about it!"

The tomboy cups her chin thoughtfully as she walks backwards towards the PokeCenter. "You know, I'm rooming with Crystal. She probably has an idea of what you're up to," she teases.

"You wouldn't," Gold hisses, blushing furiously.

Sapphire just grins toothily and darts inside the building.

* * *

Sapphire doesn't waltz up to her room. Crystal's not there anyways, for the past three days, her roommate has been pouring her life into reprogramming the Frontier's security systems to monitor Archie's activity in the wall dome around them.

Instead, Sapphire stops by the PokeCenter's medical wing, modified to serve humans as well.

Ruby's doing a lot better.

He's also acting a lot more like his normal self.

"Three days! I've been trapped in here for three days and I can't even sew! Where's my kit? Ruru, go find somebody and ask them—"

Sapphire steps around the curtain surrounding his section of the medical wing, where Ruby sits in his bed. His back is wrapped in clean white bandages, though not all of them wrap around and some areas of his chest are exposed. "I've got your—" she begins.

"Hey, hey!" Ruby immediately hides underneath his blanket; his mightyena, delcatty, and kirlia shuffle uncomfortably. "I'm half-naked here, lady! Knock before you enter, please! And stay out when I tell you to!"

Sapphire pauses. "…Good to know you're feeling okay," she says slowly.

"Just great. Wrapped in ugly white bandages, mind you, but I'll sew something beautiful to cover it up—if I could get my clothes back!"

"I've got your luggage in my room," Sapphire murmurs quietly.

Silence. "Oh, in that case, never mind," Ruby whistles cheerfully. "With you watching my clothes, I'm sure nothing will be damaged. Heck, half the time you don't even wear clothes!"

A Nurse Joy glances oddly at them. Sapphire's cheeks burn in embarrassment.

"Listen," Sapphire growls, gripping the blanket around Ruby's head. He freezes. "You don't remember?"

A little bit of movement. "How could a guy forget you running around, wearing only leaves that barely covered your—"

Nurse Joy openly stares at them in shock now. Sapphire slaps Ruby on the head hurriedly, cutting off his speech. "Shut up!"

"Ouch! Wounded guy here!" Ruby squeals. His mightyena grips the hem of Sapphire's shirt lightly with its teeth and pulls her back. "By the way, I'm suffocating in here," the boy mumbles from underneath his blanket. "Do you mind stepping outside till I put something on? Oh, I know what! Ruru, why don't you follow Sapphire to her room and grab those _special_ materials for me?"

His kirlia jumps to its feet, communicates psychically with him, and nods eagerly. Sapphire gasps slightly as an invisible force pushes her back when Ruru approaches her. Words form telepathically in her head: _Trainer is tired and needs rest. _

"Ruby!" Sapphire snaps one last time. This can't be happening again. Dammit, he took a slab of concrete for her! There's no way he can pretend that never happened. "Outside the Tower! You told me—"

"I remember!" Ruby interrupts as Ruru pushes her outside; his delcatty gently bites down on the curtain and pulls it closed. "Come by tonight—we'll talk about it then."

That's it.

Sapphire stands outside his curtained section in anger. Nothing more. He dodged around the issue before, and now he's doing it again.

Sapphire walks away.

* * *

Emerald's relieved when a pokemon trainer takes his place. The first day, he, Gold, and Sapphire were the only trainers available to assist the Frontier Brains. Thankfully, with Sapphire's passion for battling, Gold's smug energy, and Crystal's crazy networking, at least twenty other trainers volunteered to attack the exposed surface of the water wall that is the Energy Kyogre.

"Great progress, guys," he encourages as he returns his sceptile, dusclops, and sudowoodo to their balls. Each one looks incredibly tired, and he gently tucks the balls on his belt.

Emerald takes his time walking back to the PokeCenter. He really doesn't want to see Gold. There's no way his senior was stupid enough to mistake him for Archie. No—Gold's got to have some other motive for trying to vaporize him with a solar beam.

Or it's possible that Gold could just be incredibly, unforgivably stupid.

Changing his mind, Emerald decides to visit Crystal at the Battle Factory. As the area's research facility, this building has the greatest amount of technology, and Crystal's running a program that quantifies the water pressure of the Energy Kyogre trapped between the double-layer barrier and calculates the minimum amount of water to release every day, and how much attack power they need to curb and neutralize the damage. The programming is currently absorbing the majority of Crystal's time, but she willingly devotes her energy to figuring out how to manage their battle system.

Emerald walks around the Battle Factory for a while, searching each station where Crystal has worked before. He finally finds her sitting in an elevated office chair, typing with her _toes_.

"Augh!" Crystal almost slams her heel on an emergency button before catching sight of her friend. "Yah! Emerald! Sorry! I heard the _clomp clomp_ of your platform shoes and thought…" Crystal pulls her legs off a supporting platform, swinging downwards into a more natural sitting position. "I'm so sorry… I'm really tired…"

"No, it's okay," Emerald answers quickly. "You're amazing, spending so much time working on programming. When did you learn to type with your toes?"

"Just now. Practice makes perfect."

"Yeah, you've been here for nine hours. Have you taken the pain medication?"

"What?" Crystal gasps. "Dammit, I don't even know what time it is." She winces as she flexes her legs. "I got so lost in the computer that I just didn't notice. But now… ouch."

Emerald grins as he pulls an extra pill-container and a bottle of water out of his pack. Extending his mechanical arms three feet, he holds the two objects in front of her face. "Want some?"

Crystal smiles as she pops a pill into her mouth. "Thanks, Em." A gulp of water; then she swallows. "What I was going to say is that I was so tired, I thought the _clomp clomp_ of your platform shoes was the sound of Archie's metal boots hitting the floor." Crystal sighs. "Stupid, right? And after I've kicked Gold in the head so many times for being such an idiot…"

Incredibly, unforgivably stupid.

"You're just stressed," Emerald reasons. "You've been working nonstop for the past two days. You're bound to make mistakes if you keep stressing yourself."

Making stupid mistakes under a stressful situation. Gold thought he was Archie and attacked him without thinking.

Crystal hops to her feet and stretches. "You're right," she admits. "Now that I'm not buried in technology… boy, am I tired…" She glances back at the computer screen. "The water pressure program isn't finished yet…"

"I saw a super nerd at the PokeCenter," Emerald recalls. "I'll get him to help you out. You need to rest, Crystal."

As he jumps away, Emerald decides that maybe… maybe Gold _was_ just stupid.

* * *

Ruby is ready for Sapphire when he sees her a couple hours later. She looks hostile, but he's prepared for that. The girl's just so driven that sometimes she doesn't stop and think about things. Like, why would he shoo her away only days after jumping out of a window to save her from certain death? Not because he's a shallow jerk, definitely. Perhaps…

He's still slightly relieved when she continues to follow Ruru towards him, even though she stubbornly stops a couple feet away. With the dome of water blocking out most sunlight, and the edge of the forest beyond so far from street lighting, he supposes that all Sapphire can really see is his outline sitting on the ground in darkness.

"Hi, Sapphire," he begins cheerfully, returning Ruru to her ball.

She drops the slip of paper he left for her on his evacuated bed. "You were discharged from the PokeCenter and you didn't even tell me," she says dangerously.

Ruby senses another blow to the head coming and decides to jump straight to the surprise reveal. "I didn't tell you because I needed to prepare this," he responds, striking a match and lighting the candles around him. Slowly, the soft candlelight illuminates the decorated picnic he spent all afternoon setting up.

No gasp of awe or squeal of delight; all Sapphire says is, "Huh?"

Ruby returns to his position on the picnic blanket, slightly put out. But still, the show must go on. "I said before that I can't live without you," he says seriously. His nerves tingle slightly, but, both in front of a girl or the judges' panel of a pokemon contest, it's all about the confidence. "And I still mean it. Sapphire Birch, I…" He gulps. His mouth is suddenly dry. "I… I really like you. Will you go out with me?"

Sapphire doesn't say anything for a while. Then, slowly, she walks over and sits down at the only other cleared spot. "You didn't cook this, did you?"

Well, none of this is close to the romantic get-together that he'd expected. "Not the tofu dish," Ruby stutters. "I bought that from the PokeMart. And the salad. And the ice cream. But I made the berry mix—"

Sapphire peeks underneath the various cloth coverings. "No meat?!" she exclaims in disappointment.

"No! That's inhumane!" Ruby gasps. "Killing beautiful miltank just to devour their—"

"Never mind!" Sapphire interrupts, whipping the coverings off all the dishes and snatching her personal bowl possessively. "Ruby, this is amazing! I'm starving—let's eat!"

To Ruby's horror, Sapphire has scooped tons of food into her personal dish within seconds and proceeds to shovel it all down her throat.

"Sapphire! You're not even going to—"

She gulps everything down, clearing her mouth. Ruby swears he can see a lump traveling down her throat towards her stomach. "We're on a dinner date—now eat your food."

* * *

Caffeine. It's pretty much the only reason Crystal is still slightly functional now.

According to the clock, it's almost 6pm. In ten minutes, Emerald will return and forcefully drag her to her room and tuck her in bed.

The super nerd next to her types rapidly. "Communications to Mt. Silver should be restored soon… and, according to calculations, I believe that the power required to permanently dispose the Energy Kyogre is at least 28 hours of nonstop damage; however, since there are only 24 hours in a day, complete destruction is currently impossible. In order to damage the Energy Kyogre enough to coerce it into solely regenerating itself, 16 hours of damage are required. With our current number of powerful pokemon and 8 hour shifts, we can only reduce the storm levels by 50%," he announces.

Ugh. She should know what he's talking about, but she's having a hard time understanding even the simplest sentences. "Uh… that's great, S—"

Dammit, she's already forgotten his name. Shawn? Sam? Sandy?

Crystal spells out her train of thought slowly. "So… if we increase the time of our shifts while maintaining the same attack power… we could reduce the Energy Kyogre's storm damage to the regions?"

"That is exactly what I'm saying," the super nerd replies, and Crystal heaves a huge mental sigh in relief. "Until Frontier Brain Brandon constructs more of those energy-transferring devices—"

Okay, there went her comprehension. Brandon? Magic devices? "Wha?"

The super nerd sighs and shakes his head disdainfully. "Did you not listen to Greta when she notified us all at the PokeCenter? Of course, half the refugees were too busy worrying—"

Crystal angrily kicks him in the back of the head, driving his face into the tabletop. "I've been here for three days straight trying to finish this program and surviving off rice and energy drinks. That's why _you're_ here—so I don't lose consciousness in the middle of programming and screw everything up. It's hard enough typing with my toes, dammit!"

Tears prick her eyes. Stupid boys. Stupid computer. Stupid storm. Stupid Battle Frontier, for wrapping their energy bars in saran wrap. She's had so much trouble trying to pull the thin plastic off with just her toes, it makes her want to cry.

Damn, she really needs her sleep.

Super Nerd peels his face off the surface of the table and adjusts his glasses. "I'm sorry," he mumbles. "Sorry. My bad. Three days? Wow. Mm-hmm. Your toes are impressive. I didn't know people could use their toes to—"

Get to the point, dammit! "_What did Greta say?_" Crystal almost screeches.

"Erm, yes. The energy-transferring devices. Brandon has some technological devices that he is currently attempting to modify into mechanisms which can convert attack energy into support energy. The purpose of the device is to reinforce the smeargle barrier—"

"So it can hold more water inside," Crystal catches up, her brain functioning again. "More ways to control Archie and his Kyogre copy: make the Barriers stronger so we can hold more storm energy, and beat his copy up so it has to regenerate itself."

"Yes. Unfortunately, Brandon has not deemed the prototype stable enough, so we'll have to stick to recruiting more trainers to contribute to overall attack power."

Crystal sips at her four-shot espresso, trying to keep her body from shutting down. "I don't think I can recruit tomorrow," she yawns. "I… What's that flashing light?"

Super Nerd adjusts his glasses. "It's… water pressure has sky rocketed within the past two minutes! This is impossible! Energy Kyogre must be trying to unleash a typhoon-level rainstorm!"

"We need to let everybody know—call Greta," Crystal instructs, using her foot to slide her phone at him. "And call Sapphire and Gold right after that." She jumps to her feet and runs out the door, almost crashing into Emerald.

Emerald starts, "You really need—"

"_We_ really need to attack the Energy Kyogre, _now_," Crystal warns hastily. "The barriers are going to shatter in fifteen minutes."

* * *

Sapphire pats her stomach in content. Who knew vegetarian meals could be so delicious?

She collapses on her back, yanking on the back of Ruby's shirt and dragging him down too. "Hey!" he yelps. "What the—"

"Looking at stars," Sapphire grins.

Ruby stares up into the psychically-suspended water ceiling above them. "There is no sky," he states flatly. "Just the smeargle barrier."

"Watery foam, shiny psychic barriers, fiery balls of exploding gas bazillions of miles away—they're the same thing. Open to interpretation."

Sapphire rolls her head to the side to observe Ruby, who's squinting at the "sky" above them. "Okay," he finally decides. "That zigzag of light over there? That's a lightning bolt."

Sapphire giggles, pointing at a dissolving trail of foam. "That's your muscle mass."

Ruby slaps her on the shoulder. She smacks him in the head. "Owie!" he yelps. "That hurts!"

"I rest my case," Sapphire simpers.

"That's my skull; there aren't muscles in there. Anyways, I'm a wounded guy!"

"Wounded enough to set all this up." Sapphire couldn't really care less for the decorations, but looking at them now, it looks like they took a bit of work: ribbons hanging from tree branches, pokemon dolls sitting around them, candles and nice napkins and steel utensils.

Sapphire sits up suddenly and grabs a fork. "Where did you get this?" she questions as she leans over him with the fork pointed at his chest. "Nurse Joy said notto take _anything_ out of the cafeteria!"

Ruby flinches. "Gah! It wouldn't be a proper dinner date with plastic utensils!"

Unexpectedly, he grabs her wrist and uses gravity to pull the fork downwards, stabbing it into the dirt next to his waist; the action also brings Sapphire that much closer to Ruby, with both of her arms on either side of his torso.

The soft candlelight gives his white face a warm orange glow. His eyes twinkle in the dim—

Awkward scenarios start popping up in Sapphire's head—what if he really doesn't intend to do what Sapphire's thinking he wants her to do and it just gets all weird and awkward, even if this really is their first date and it _was_ a really great dinner put together by a really nice guy (though he's girly-er than she is) who just got released from the PokeCenter hospital and lied to her all day just to surprise her with a surprise date—

Sapphire releases the fork and tries to return to her position lying right next to him—except he just grabs her wrist again and plants it back down, then returns to staring straight at her.

Oh. Okay. If that's how he wants to play…

Sapphire's about to close the distance when her phone rings.

Special emergency ringtone, either from Crystal or Greta.

She rolls off Ruby's body, pulls the phone out of her pocket, and flips it open all within the space of two seconds. "Sapphire and Ruby here," she states, activating speakerphone.

It's Crystal's number, but a guy's voice speaks. "I'm Crystal's programming assistant, Shane. The Kyogre Copy's going to unleash a massive storm in twelve minutes. If we don't counter it by then, we'll have to release all of it and flood Hoenn within the hour."

"We've worked at least four hours already today!" she exclaims. "Our pokemon are exhausted and they're still recovering in the PokeCenter!"

"The PokeCenter staff have done as much as they can and released the parties; we need all trainers to meet up with their pokemon at the Energy Input Center behind the Tower Ruins, right now."

Sapphire leaps to her feet, glancing over at Ruby; he's already standing up, all his pokeballs cupped in his hands. "Ready when you are," he says.

If Ruby's ready to fight, there's no way her party won't be able to keep up.

Sapphire grins. "I'm always ready."


	8. touched - FUTURE

******Timeless - chapter 4b - **FUTURE

* * *

Water cascades down its sides as it soars into the night sky—a colossal liquid mountain floating in the middle of the ocean.

It's a mountain of water. Blue can't comprehend it. It's impossible; no pokemon could control such a large amount of water—yet it attacked Green and knocked out his charizard. What else could it be, if not an extremely hungry monster?

The descent of a waterfall suddenly ceases, collecting instead into a tight bundle that begins to foam wildly. It's charging up for another compact water missile.

"Dodge!" Green shouts, thumping Blue's wigglytuff in the chest. The wigglytuff unleashes a burst of air, pushing them aside just as a bullet of icy water screams past them. No doubt about it: that attack was definitely meant to kill.

"Wiggly!" Blue shouts from on top of her sky-rocketing blastoise. "Tri Attack!"

Wiggly inhales again—and when it opens its mouth, brilliant blue fire, cackling azure lightning, and sharp sky-colored spears of ice blast towards the mountain of water. It's beautiful—but the elements do next to nothing when they disappear into the mountain of water.

Blue's rocketing blastoise begins to fly towards Green. In warning, Green shouts, "Stay apart—we're less likely to be hit if we remain as separate targets!"

"Isn't this the part where we run?" Blue yells back, a weak grin on her face. "How the hell are we supposed to fight a huge ball of water in the middle of the ocean?"

"It's a pokemon; it has to have a weak point." Green analyzes the liquid mass for any indication of a body. "Its spiritual energy should be concentrated on a small area on its body. If we hit it, we should be able to daze it long enough to escape without having to dodge—DODGE! DOWN!"

Wiggly releases all its inhaled air while Blue's blastoise stops its water-rocketing; the two drop underneath the swarm of icy spears fired directly at them.

"Gramps says that most vital points are located on pokemon's foreheads," Green shouts when they've recovered, climbing onto Wiggly's head and directing it to position itself above the mountain of water. "Tri Attack, right at the peak!"

Wiggly releases her multi-elemental attack again, but it's promptly engulfed in a titanic eruption of water from the monster's peak. The water blast continues unhindered, slamming directly into Wiggly. Its flexible body absorbs most of the impact, but once again, Green finds himself flying into the night sky with another unconscious pokemon.

And then he's falling hundreds of feet. His heart is pounding and air screams around him, he can't breathe and the scratches on his chest burn in pain. Blue's blastoise barrels towards him, only to be knocked aside by another blast of water; Blue screams as she becomes airborne as well. The ocean is rapidly approaching and Green knows he won't survive the impact—

Darkness.

* * *

Yellow stretches. Ever since touching the strange crystal on her chest last night, she's felt a lot more energetic. Before that strange experience, de-petrifying pokemon instantly knocked her unconscious; now, she can heal at least two without feeling the need to sleep.

Though, after de-petrifying Red's entire belt, she promptly took a six-hour nap.

She blinks sleepily, slightly surprised when she feels the smooth scales of a gyarados beneath her instead of the rocky leather skin of his aerodactyl. "Morning," she mumbles.

Red whirls around. "Yellow!" he exclaims, grabbing her shoulders. "Don't do that again! Holy Arceus, I thought you died after my entire belt!"

Yellow flushes, but not just in shame. He was concerned for her.

As a friend.

Yeah.

Red grins as he releases her and sits back. "But it's a good thing you did," he admits. "Aero was so tired last night—the gunshots actually hurt him a lot more than he let on. Gyara let us surf on his back afterwards."

Yellow taps on its scale. "Thanks for letting us sit on your head, Gyara."

_Thank __**you**__, Yellow,_ the gyarados rumbles back.

When she looks back up again, Red's staring at her strangely. "W-what?" Yellow stutters.

"Uh… I'm not sure how to phrase this," Red mumbles. "You're… different."

_So are you_, she thinks, but she doesn't voice the thought. He just looks a lot more muscular than she remembers. Her own changes, on the other hand… Feigning ignorance, she mumbles, "What do you mean? I'm Yellow. I'm 14 years old."

Red turns away, staring pensively at the sunrise's reflection on the ocean's surface. "I'm Red and I think I'm 16, but sometimes… it doesn't feel that way. Maybe you don't feel it; maybe you do. After all, just yesterday, we were still stone statues. But I feel different. I don't feel like I'm the same person I was before Sird petrified us."

The crystal…

"Look at your chest," Yellow murmurs. "There's something on your chest. It's on mine too."

Red looks at her oddly but glances down his shirt. And just stares. "Wh… what?" he stammers weakly. "What… when…"

"I touched mine last night… and I healed myself," Yellow says softly. "I've never been able to do that before. I only heal pokemon—I only see what their minds allow me to see and I tell them that I want to see their spirits… and then I heal them. But I've never been able to read the human mind." Yellow cups her head in her hands. "How can I even heal myself? I _am _my own mind! It's not like I have to read my mind… it doesn't work that way…"

"What about me?"

Yellow's head snaps up. Red looks… nervous? "What?"

"Last night," Red says. "You touched that… thing on my chest. You healed me. Did you…?"

Red, frozen on the stairs of Annie's house, breathing hard. His eyes were wide open, bloodshot. He intimidated her; he was always a kind, cheerful sort of guy—not the violent brawler she'd been looking at then.

He looked like he wanted to fight.

For a girl with pacifist view on the world, Red's state at that point pained her.

So she (instinctively?) reached under his shirt and touched his chest crystal. She somehow knew it was there, touched him there, and healed him.

No. She healed Mewtwo.

The memories flood her mind again. Pain as Mewtwo exploded into pure psychic energy. The sacrifice of his life and spirit to ensure that Red, Yellow, Silver, Green, and Blue would survive. Power to crumble their stone prison over the course of several years, chipping away at the impossible bonds. Restoring the strength to their bodies after petrification, finally releasing them to save the world.

Red's fingers are on her shoulders again. Tears roll down her cheeks. She sniffs and wipes them away, remembering that she's sitting on Gyara with Red.

Red's mouth moves. It's a moment before she can actually hear him. "I really don't know what's going on either," he murmurs. "It's just… when I saw those guys, this… this rage—"

Yellow shakes her head. "I didn't read your mind. I couldn't. I read Mewtwo's last thoughts in my crystal."

Red stiffens. "Mewtwo's dead?"

"He sacrificed himself," Yellow recalls. "He was petrified too, but he used the stone to psychically concentrate his spirit into a crystal comet. He looked for us, and he found Deoxys…" She scoots next to Red and quietly squeaks, "Can I touch your crystal again?"

Wordlessly, Red sheds his jacket and pulls up his shirt. Yellow gently places the flat of her palm against his heart and closes her eyes. _Mewtwo, speak to me._

Particles of light dance underneath her eyelids. Memories of a past life. Pain and anguish. Sacrifice and death. Power and determination. Strength and spirit.

Deoxys. The DNA pokemon with the ability to modify its own genetics and switch between four different forms—now in Attack form, standing motionless in front of the petrified statue of herself and Red in a room with metal walls. Green, Blue, and Silver are nowhere to be seen. Deoxys brushes its spiked arms against their chests… and then the memory disappears in a rush of black.

Another memory, this time from her own crystal.

_Deoxys: give her your life._

Yellow opens her eyes at the same time Red opens his. Her hand drops off Red's chest and she stares down at Gyara's beautiful scales, luminescent in the morning sunrise. Deoxys gave her his life… his spirit. His energy.

"What did you see?" Red asks after a moment.

Yellow glances up at Red, then down at her hands again. "Mewtwo told Deoxys about our petrification, and he found us. I don't know about Green or Silver or Blue, but Deoxys found me. He sacrificed himself—and gave me the rest of his spirit. I… I think that's why I was able to revive your entire belt—I have Deoxys' energy inside of me."

"What about the crystals?"

Yellow recalls the memory of Mewtwo's crystals lying in front of Deoxys. And then, Deoxys standing in front of their statue, touching their crystal-less chests with its arms. "I don't know," she says. "It's how Mewtwo initially contacted Deoxys, but after that… I don't know."

* * *

Blue. Blue skies. And sunshine.

Blue stirs, but freezes as pain wracks her entire body. She thought her body hurt when the crazy swimming tangela beat her against the ocean's surface three times—but this hurts a helluva lots more.

Blue glances down at her body. Huh, no wonder—her body is just one massive bruise. After that mountain of water shot her and Blasty out of the sky, she fell a hundred feet before Blasty caught her again; then they were encased in ice and cracked out again. Fortunately, Blue's had a history with cruel ice games, so she knew how to maintain her blood circulation and stay alive—until a chunk of ice smashed into the side of her head and she blacked out.

Well, she's still alive. Somehow.

It takes another couple seconds for Blue to recover enough to sit up. Damn. Her… well, pretty much everywhere hurts. She's sitting in sand. Waves wash over her. She's sitting on a beach.

A very small beach. On a very small island. She could probably walk around the rock in two minutes. If she can walk. Her legs feel fine, if not bruised beyond belief.

Blasty! And Wiggly! Green!

Blue jumps to her feet, grunting as she tries to ignore the pain blossoming through her body. The more pretends to not notice the pain, the less it will hurt. What's important now is that she finds her first pokemon, her starter, and her friend.

Five minutes of walking endlessly around the tiny rock shows nothing. The tiny beach is empty; the surrounding oceans are empty.

Her belt is empty.

Blue's heart stops as she pats her belt. Every petrified clip snapped; even her pack is almost empty, ripped open from the bottom. Her soaked shirt has holes in it. A portion of her skirt is torn by tooth marks.

Missing pokemon. Tooth marks from the powerful monster in the water mountain that tried to eat her. Blasty deposited her here, went to fight the mountain of water, and never came back.

She's alone.

_Dammit! _she screams to herself. She can't afford to be weak right now. Blasty can't fight for her; Wiggly can't airlift her away to safety; Green can't jump in next to her, his controlled voice just behind her shoulder. She's by herself.

But she can fight for herself. It's how she survived in the ice cave when "Father" Pryce wasn't around. She and Silver was the youngest pair of children; the other two pairs often bullied them for resources, so Blue learned young how to defend herself and fight back when possible. Underneath her mask of ice, she learned to control her own tone of voice and convey a constantly cheerful attitude, all while tricking, deceiving, manipulating others' emotions. All so they wouldn't crush her or Silver.

Silver. He isn't here either. Neither are Red and Yellow. As much as she knows, Green's dead; he fell hundreds of feet and hit the water head-first—at that height, water acts a lot like concrete. Blasty's dead. The mountain of water drowned her fainted wigglytuff. Her petrified pokemon are buried under mud at the bottom of the ocean. For the first time since Ho-oh plucked a five-year old girl out of her family's front yard and brought her to Pryce's ice cave, Blue is truly alone.

She hastily wipes tears off her cheeks. "I'm strong," she murmurs. Saying it out loud makes it true. "I can survive without you guys."

She'll live. She will survive. The ocean might be huge, but boats travel across it all the time. Damn, trainers use their pokemon to surf or fly regularly across it; there's always at least one gym situated on an island in every region. Somebody will come.

As for the hopelessness of separation from the boy she'd come to consider her younger brother and the recent brutal defeat that cost her not only the entire party she's raised since her escape from Pryce's ice cave, but also the quiet boy she'd taken a tiny liking to: "I loved you."

And so she waits, completely oblivious to the fact that she sits on the summit of a mountain drowned by miles and miles of deserted ocean.

Truly alone.


	9. isolated - PAST

******Timeless - chapter 5a - **PAST

* * *

It's two o'clock in the morning when Crystal slumps into her bed face first and doesn't move.

After four hours of pouring energy into the Energy Input Center and finally neutralizing most of the Energy Kyogre's attempt to flood Hoenn, even Sapphire's not sure if she can stay awake for another minute. Still, Crystal's just lying there… Mischievously, Sapphire pokes her roommate in the stomach.

The ticklish girl doesn't even flinch.

"Crys, you're going to suffocate yourself on your own pillow."

Wordlessly, Crystal kicks off her shoes and curls onto her side, fetal position; Sapphire pulls the blankets up around Crystal's body, then throws off her own clothes and hops into bed. (Hey, she didn't start wearing clothes till Ruby practically forced a modified version of his own outfit onto her body when they first met.)

Ruby.

Sapphire smiles to herself as she stares up at the ceiling. She still thinks Ruby's an idiot with his coordinator outlook on life, but he was the one who'd dragged a couple of technologically-oriented refugees—two scientists, a rocker and his guitarist, even an old engineer—into working on the devices that produced defensive and support energy when powered by attack energy. Together, the makeshift team had constructed a functioning device within an hour—and Ruby gleefully led the effort to assist the smeargles in reinforcing the barrier.

They succeeded. With the strengthened Barrier and a more durable light screen, they were able to contain most of the storm and beat it down with nonstop damage.

It's almost terrifying how close they are to death by drowning.

Sure, Sapphire's almost died too many times before—falling out of trees hanging over ravines, dragged underwater by hungry carvanha during a raging flood, disturbing a pair of mating beedrills, stealing berries from a primeape, trying to resolve a conflict between Kyogre and Groudon… yep, she's stared death in the face, flipped it off, and survived!

It's pretty much the same situation here, except this time the staring competition hasn't ended yet. They've caged Archie's Energy Kyogre into the Battle Frontier at the risk of their own lives. But if it means saving Hoenn, then so be it.

Besides, because of Archie, she has Ruby now.

Unable to fall sleep, Sapphire decides to go for a run. Hopefully a little exercise will tire her out and help her fall asleep faster. She leaps out of her top bunk and thumps onto the ground noisily. Crystal doesn't even stir—not even when Sapphire mischievously pokes her in the stomach again.

* * *

_Somebody. Please help me. Please._

_…Silver?_

_Please. Help me_.

Gold's eyes flutter open. Reflexively, he grabs his phone and checks the time. 3:30 am.

Ugh. Definitely not time to wake up. Especially since he just fell asleep an hour ago.

But the memory of Silver's anguish cry flitters through Gold's mind again, keeping him from sinking back into unconsciousness. He's had the same dream for the past couple days. The frozen, blurred image of his friend, and that one call for help repeated over and over again until Gold wakes up.

It's driving him insane.

So he hops out of bed, throws on whatever clothes he can find in the darkness, jogs down the hallway, rounds the corner towards the stairwell—and promptly crashes into Sapphire.

"Whoa!" Sapphire yelps, bouncing away from him and landing in a reflex defensive stance. "Hey, watch it!"

"Sorry," Gold mutters, sidestepping around the younger girl.

"Hold on a sec," Sapphire says, stepping in front of him almost simultaneously. He notices that she isn't wearing much—just a sports bra and spandex biking shorts. No shoes. Normally, this would be the perfect opportunity to poke fun at the nearly-naked girl, but Gold's got other things on his mind. "Where are you headed so late at night?"

"Just going out," Gold replies quickly, trying to get past her. She's fast, though, blocking his path again.

"I sense secret shenanigans going down," she smirks. "Why else would you sneak out so late at night?"

Gold's temper flares. Damn, she's just as brash and intrusive as… as he is. But this is none of her business. "Oh yeah?" he snaps back. "So why are you creeping around?"

Sapphire ignores his rebuttal. "Are you going out to see Silver again?" she grins, like it's a funny thing that Gold likes checking up on his rival-turned-friend so much. "Can I come with?"

Gold sighs in frustration and roughly shoulders his way past her, hopping on the stairwell railing and sliding his way down onto the landing. "Whatever."

"Somebody's really grumpy," Sapphire chirps. She adeptly leaps over the railing and lands right in front of him, limbs splayed out for balance. "Lack of sleep does that to you."

Gold steps around her again, stepping into the main lobby. A chansey trills when she notices him, but he waves her off. "Yeah. Don't cross me," he growls back his stalker.

Sapphire falls silent. So silent, in fact, that Gold briefly thinks that maybe she went back to her room. When he glances over his shoulder, though, he finds that the girl is still stepping along softly behind him. Her bare feet land on the ground so lightly that she hardly makes any noise as she pads along the grassy dirt outside the PokeCenter.

"You're sneaking," he comments, almost accusatory.

"Huh?" Sapphire blinks. "I always walk like this."

"And I suppose you run around half naked too," he smirks, defaulting to his usual, carefree attitude.

"Actually, yes. At least, I used to. Before I met Ruby."

…Gold can't think of anything to say to that.

There. In the middle of the courtyard stand his four seniors and his rival turned close friend. Five petrified teenagers that were supposed to be healed by the power of Jirachi. Gold's nonchalance melts away the moment his eyes land on Silver's form, crouching in the back.

They failed. Gold failed to help Emerald capture Jirachi. His friends are still trapped within stone, begging him in his dreams to help them.

Gold stops in front of Silver. In the dark, it's hard to find Silver's eyes, especially now that they're the same color as the rest of his gray, petrified body. His irises used to be so silver that they glimmered in darkness.

Sapphire respectfully doesn't taunt him. She only looks over the other figures—Red and Yellow, then Blue. "Are they related?" she asks after a quiet moment.

Gold snaps out of his moody thoughts. "Who?"

Sapphire points to Silver and Blue, the latter standing in front of the former. "It looks like she's defending him."

"Oh." Gold ponders this for a minute, trying to piece together all the times Silver talked about Blue. Which was quite a lot. "They were pretty close, but I don't think they were blood-related." Silver mentioned things about skating across icy lakes to escape bullies and working with Blue to sneak out of stores—

His mind is jerked back to the present as Sapphire once again speaks. "Uh, I'm going to go take a hike now," she says somewhat awkwardly.

"Go ahead," Gold smirks, waving her off. Out of the corner of his eye, though, he spots Sapphire disappearing up a tree. Barefoot, half-naked, running around the forest as if it was her natural habitat—what world did this girl come from?

He turns his attention back to Silver, but this time, he can't help but think of Blue as well. His best friend and his older "sister."

Later that night, as Gold sinks into sleep again, Blue's voice echoes weakly in his head.

_I… I loved you._

* * *

Ruby moves out of the hospital housing into a PokeCenter room that already has two occupants. The thing is, one's an engineer who monitors the energy-converting devices that keeps the barriers stable, and the other's a super nerd who pulls all-nighters with Crystal in maintaining the communication system. Since neither boy spends much time occupying the quarter, Ruby feels comfortable enough rooming with them. Besides, with two bunk beds in each room, Ruby can sleep in his own mattress.

Which he is incredibly grateful for, since the room looks like the aftermath of an aeroblast: random articles of clothing strewn across every available surface within reach, pop cans and stale food and candy wrappers on the floor, engineering notes scattered around the room, and even some pokemon droppings in a corner.

Ruby winces at one of his roommates' wardrobe. So. Much. Flannel.

He spends the next hour filling and emptying the trash, folding clothes, and organizing papers with Ruru's help; the kirlia's psychic power definitely eases the process. It's dirty work, but he doesn't blame his roommates; after all, they're involved in keeping Archie's Energy Kyogre from drowning the world.

Ruby's about to request the service of a vacuum cleaner when the door swings open, admitting the boy who dares to wear flannel of such mismatched colors. The conflicting orange and green makes Ruby's eye twitch in shock.

The boy glances at Ruby, then around the room, in confusion. "Sorry," he apologizes, backing out. "Wrong room…"

"Wait! I just cleaned out the room," Ruby says quickly, pulling the door open again. "I was assigned here this morning. Hi, I'm Ruby."

"Tyson." The roommate shakes Ruby's hand. "Hey, you're the guy who pulled our team together! I'm the guitarist who does the electrical wiring for the energy converting devices."

Ruby crinkles his eyes in thought. Energy Kyogre's massive storm was only last night, but Ruby really can't remember that much. Especially with that horrifying flannel shirt burning his eyes out.

"Take that off," Ruby spits out. "Your shirt. Take it off."

A small grin slips its way onto Tyson's face as he slowly unbuttons the shirt. "Sure."

That's right; guitarists generally perform shirtless. Ruby's not going for that, though; he reaches into the pile of folded clothes and tosses a plain blue shirt at his roommate. "Wear that," he says. "I'm going to burn all your flannel before it burns my eyes out."

Before Tyson can frantically object, the third roommate stumbles into the room and promptly passes out on a bed.

A second later, Crystal darts into the room. Her arms are no longer tied behind her back, instead contained within immobilizing casts; however, her hands work well enough to hold a bowl of rice now. "I need you back in the communications room so I can eat, Shane!" she screeches. Ruby notes that her eyes are thoroughly bloodshot and her hair sticks out in random places; in short, she looks crazed.

"I need sleep more than you need food," the boy moans. "Besides, food makes you fat."

Crystal furiously beans him in the head with her bowl of rice. White grains spray everywhere. "Get up, I can't do this alone!"

Tyson squeezes between Crystal and Shane's prone body, holding up his hands defensively. "I think you need to calm down—"

"I AM PERFECTLY CALM." To demonstrate, Crystal lifts her knee straight up into Tyson's crotch. He collapses, allowing her to advance upon her unwilling assistant. "Shane, I swear, if you don't—"

Ruby taps her on the shoulder. "Crystal, I know you're—" The rest of Ruby's sentence is cut off when the irrational girl tries to kick him. He leaps backwards, bracing himself against the wall. "I'll help you!" he finishes quickly. Crystal is his senior, after all; so if she asks for help, it's only appropriate that she gets it. He may not know much about computers, but Crystal _obviously_ needs help.

Where's Gold when they actually need him?

* * *

After another impromptu nap, Crystal feels much better.

Even if she did fall asleep halfway through tutoring Ruby and Emerald about the communication system.

She wakes up in her own bed when Sapphire pokes her in the stomach, prompting a squealed "EEP!"

"She's alive!" Sapphire giggles.

"And trying to sleep," Crystal growls. "How did I get here?"

"Ruby's Kirlia levitated you here. He also recruited a couple more assistants for you."

Crystal practically sobs in relief. "Oh. Wow. I think I love that kid."

"That's my job," Sapphire snaps.

Crystal winces. "Right. Where's Gold?"

Sapphire plops onto the bed next to Crystal. "How are your arms doing?" she inquires instead, poking the stiff casts. "Ruby told me you could move your arms enough to smash a bowl of rice over your lame assistant's head when he quit."

Crystal blushes. "I probably shouldn't have done that," she murmurs. "It's just that…"

"Lack of sleep does that to you," Sapphire grins. "You and Gold—you guys usually aren't so grumpy."

Crystal sits up in interest. "How is Gold not getting any sleep?"

"Heck if I know," Sapphire says quickly, popping off Crystal's bed. "But I know that you need yours. Ruby says your arms will heal faster if you get more sleep."

Crystal slides her legs off the mattress and pushes herself to her feet. She hasn't seen Gold since… well, since she threw herself into maintaining the communication system. "I want to know how he's doing," she says vaguely. "He's rooming with Emerald, right?"

Sapphire looks hesitant. "You know what I said about grumpy? Scratch that. Gold is somewhere around twice as nuts as you were before your nap."

"I was not—" Crystal retorts, but Sapphire nails her with a flat glare.

"Not according to what Ruby told me," the younger girl interrupts. Crystal reconsiders her situation; yes, three days straight of programming, eating, and smacking Shane over the head with only her toes… might just drive the normal person insane. "Anyways, Gold? He has such a short-fuse that—"

"Where is Emerald's room?" Crystal cuts in. Truth is, she doesn't even remember where her buddy's room is located. Despite sleeping for most of the past three days, her brain still finds it hard to function at times.

"Gold usually isn't there," Sapphire responds after a pause. "You'll usually find him in the courtyard. By the petrified statues."

Crystal nods and walks out of the room. When she turns around, she's surprised to find Sapphire following her, her bare feet barely making a noise as they contact the floor.

"You're really sneaky, you know that?" Crystal comments.

Sapphire shoots her a strange look, only replying, "I always walk like this."

"And you sleep naked," Crystal recalls. "Will the wonders never end."

* * *

Ruby watches silently as Tyson types away at the computer. At times, his roommate will reach over to a touchscreen and draw lines between boxes that represent electrical systems. Or something like that. Ruby really has no clue what's going on, but he'd joined to relieve his senior, and it's obvious that Crystal's regained quite a bit of her sanity over the past couple days.

In fact, all of the trainers have settled into the routine here at the Battle Frontier after the rocky first week of shock. If somebody isn't stationed at an energy-converting device to help support the barrier or attacking the Energy Kyogre copy itself, then they're roped into helping the refugee camp some other way: the programming lab, the communications center, the kitchen, the medical clinic, the sanitation team, etc.

They've all been so busy fighting for their lives—and for the thousands of lives still trapped in Hoenn—that Ruby's barely had any time to think. It seems that, just when they're starting to relax, the Energy Kyogre ups the ante just a little bit more by trying to break free, or creating more powerful storms.

But here, isolated within the programming lab and communications center, Ruby has a little bit of time to think.

And he's finding some things fishy.

Number 1: he can't contact his dad. Or anybody on Hoenn for that matter. One would think that, since Hoenn is the closest land mass to the Battle Frontier, it'd be the easiest to reach. But no, the only line of connection that they have with the outside world is through Professor Oak. Which brings him to his second suspicion…

Number 2: Professor Oak is definitely the greatest pokemon researcher to have ever lived, and as a resource for _how_ to contain a copied monstrosity, he's been invaluable. But, as a coordinator who organizes performances for a large number of panelists, Ruby needs reference from more than just Professor Oak. One judge in a pokemon contest is not sufficient; a coordinator needs multiple people to different perspectives on how to improve a certain technique. In short, Professor Oak may be one of the best, but they need more.

Number 3: So why can't they access more? Sapphire's dad, Professor Birch, is the leading researcher in Hoenn. Why can't they access him? Why can't they access his dad?

* * *

_Somebody please help me_, Silver pleads._ Please._

_Save me. _It's Green's voice, the usually cool tone now replaced with desperate, wild emotion. _Save us._

_I loved you_, Blue's words echo. _I'll never be able to tell you._

The flood of broken emotions overwhelms Gold's nights and echoes during his days. He can't keep up his charade of sarcastic carelessness when he's got all this damn _angst_ bubbling inside him. Dammit, it's not even his own problem. His problem right now is keeping Archie from flooding the entire world. But the thoughts of his friends transmitted from their petrified minds to his live mind continue to invade his days, so he finds himself sitting next to their statues. At least this way, it actually feels like they're actually talking to him, instead of hauntingly whispering in his ears like lonely ghosts.

He might be going crazy.

Sunbo sits next to him, silently soaking up the dim sunlight filtering through the dome of water overhead. It's comforting to have his quiet sunkern accompanying him, especially since she leaves him alone with his thoughts. Aibo would never stop chattering, Polibo couldn't stop bouncing around, and Togebo has a tendency to wrathfully destroy anything in sight.

Professor Elm wasn't too happy that he hatched such a violent togepi.

The sound of shoes slapping the ground alerts Gold to Crystal's presence. "Sleeping well?" he asks her dully, and her footsteps stop directly behind him.

A pause. "And here I thought that you were going to make a sarcastic jab at me," Crystal teases.

Gold waves her off. "I'm meditating. Leave me alone."

Crystal just sits next to him, adopting a calm, meditative pose. "Drowning alone in your own thoughts?"

They aren't his own thoughts. He doesn't even have enough space to have his own thoughts. No, he just has the disembodied thoughts of three friends crowding his mind for space. Her spoken words grate harshly against his ears, drowning out the cries within his head. "Go away," he says crossly.

"Gold!" Crystal exclaims, her volume once again irritating him. "What's going on with you? You aren't usually like this."

"As if you know me," Gold scoffs. Silver's voice swells in his head, begging to be heard.

Crystal's voice cuts through his thoughts, bitter and dry. "Gold… I thought…"

"I need to be alone," Gold mutters.

"Gold, you need help," Crystal insists, suddenly hugging him. "I was in the same spot earlier this week and it wasn't until I opened up—"

Gold shoulders her off roughly. "There's no way that you're experiencing the same thing I am now," he growls, suddenly furious that she could even _think_ that she knows what he's feeling. Voices in his head. There are _voices_ in his head of the people he failed to save! It's enough to drive anybody into a sullen mood of regretful guilt.

Voices in his head. Darn it, he really is insane. He's cracked and he's only starting to realize it.

Crystal seems to be getting closer, hesitantly trying to approach him. On a sudden aggressive whim, Gold pulls his billiard cue from the grass beside him and jabs her in the side with it—not playfully either, but hard.

Crystal gasps as the cue stabs its way into her ribs. She shoots away and rolls to her feet, staring at him in open anger now. "What is your problem?" she shrieks. Gold dimly notes that her eyes are rather bloodshot. "I stayed awake for the first three days of this watery prison we've trapped ourselves in. I did all the initial programming. _All of it._ I survived off rice and caffeine and I did it because I thought—you know, I don't know why I thought I should do it alone. But it wasn't until Ruby came along and brought a bunch of volunteers that I realized that I couldn't do this by myself. I was driving myself _insane_. I was killing myself. Gold—"

"I don't care," Gold says flippantly. "Just go away."

Crystal's jaw drops. Blood flushes into her cheeks. Tears form at her eyes and she lifts her leg reflexively, as if ready to roundhouse-kick his head clean off his shoulders—

Sapphire's arms suddenly twist around Crystal's torso from behind. Crystal flails as the younger but much stronger girl pulls her back, safely away from Gold.

Crystal breaks into an all-out struggle. "Gold!" she screams. "Gold, you freakin' bastard, I can't believe you! I can't… I can't…"

Gold turns his back on her, training his eyes on the statues of his petrified friends. Their whispers grow ever louder in his head, tumbling over each other in their frantic attempt to hold his attention.

_I'm not strong enough for this_, Blue murmurs. _Don't leave me alone._

_Save us. _Green's controlled voice now, recovered from its wild fear moments earlier. _I know you can._

_I'm alone_, Silver begs, his voice cracking desperately._ Please. Help me, I'm all alone._


	10. isolated - FUTtURE

******Timeless - chapter 5b - **FUTt**URE**

* * *

Blue has never been a girl to wait. It might have been only an hour or two, but there's no way she could just wait around for a ship or swimmer to pass.

Besides, she'd just spent an hour moping around in crushing sorrow and loneliness. It wasn't like her at all and it left her feeling worse than before. She'd deal with it much better by simply ignoring it.

So that's what she does.

The ocean surface boils urgently, its deep cerulean color warping and warming as the seconds pass. Blue scrambles back from the brink of her tiny island, ready to trigger the rockslide she set up earlier. She'd found a wingull earlier, beat it to death with a rock, and dropped it in the ocean for any predators to fetch. It's just the beginning of a pokemon version of Bigger and Better.

She has two spare pokeballs that she'd hidden in secret places in her body (not that anybody needed to know that). Time to catch a ride off this tiny rock island.

A pink blob materializes and expands as it rises towards the surface of the water. Blue freezes. There's no way—

Her inflated Wigglytuff explodes from the depths of the ocean and lands in front of her, instantly belching up tons of hot air, grey mud, and seaweed. Blue pushes through all of it to wrap her arms around her first pokemon, burying her face in its soft pink belly.

"You're alive," she murmurs quietly. "You didn't die."

Wiggly squeaks, patting her on the back.

Blue glances sharply into Wiggly's gigantic green eyes. "You mean you seriously left me alone for an entire day? You were alive this entire time and _you didn't come see me?_"

Wiggly squeaks again, but her communication is interrupted as a fountain explodes next to them—Blasty launches out of the ocean and lands on the rocky cliff next to them.

Blue promptly whirls around and kicks her starter in the shell. As she crumples to the ground, nursing a bruised foot, she yells, "How could you leave me alone for an entire day! I thought you died! I thought that freak mountain of water killed you! What were you—"

Wiggly stops shuffling through the mud behind her, squealing in excitement. She stomps a small, slime-covered sphere, which explodes into white light. Within seconds, her Ditto materializes.

Blue's jaw drops as Wiggly continues searching through the sea sludge. The pieces are coming together—Blasty searching the ocean floor for pokeballs, then handing them to Wiggly for storage. They deposited her on the nearest landmass and proceeded to search for everything else she lost—her clefable appears in a flash of light and bounds over, hugging her trainer. Blue just buries her face into her warm fur. Warm. She can feel every strand of fur tickling her skin. A blessing, compared to the years working for Pryce, pretending like she didn't feel anything as the ice mask numbed her face.

"I'm sorry, Blasty," she mumbles as her starter pulls up next to her, rumbling in concern. She rubs his scaly skull, feeling the all the ridges of each scale. They're alive. They're here right now—Ditty and Clefy and Blasty and Nido and Wiggly—

If Wiggly wasn't knocked unconscious by that blast of water, then surely she must have caught Green.

"Green," she gasps, jumping to her feet to peer over Clefy's head. "Where's Green?"

Wiggly pauses her search through the mud. Her iridescent green eyes shimmer in apology.

Blue sinks into Clefy's hair swirl—gentle, soft. "No, I understand. That attack was so brutal, I thought you were gone. And now, you're alive… I just assumed…" She doesn't notice how weak her legs are suddenly until they give way. Clumsily, she topples backwards until Blasty shifts, using his shell as a barrier. She sits on the hard surface, then slides slowly to the rocky ground.

Green is dead.

It hits her again—that heartbreaking feeling of loss. All those emotions she'd barely managed to ignore before come piling back on top of her. Silver is forever lost to her, maybe a stone statue at the bottom of the endless ocean. Green is gone as well. But her team's alive. The sudden onslaught of emotions—of sensory information, of scent and sight and smell and touch—overwhelms her. It makes her realize that she can't live without them. She could never make her way through the world without experiencing these familiar sensations again.

If that's how she feels about her pokemon… couldn't the same thing apply to a human?

Green was just a friend. She convinced herself of it, yet, when she thought that he might be alive—something deep inside her stirred. He might be alive. _Green_ might still be alive, and if he is, Blue can still tell him…

But he's not. Green's dead, and it doesn't matter what she feels about him.

Blue pushes the thoughts out of her mind. She can't think like this. Time to ignore those powerful emotions that threaten to crush her unmercifully. She's strong, both in body and mind; she will live through this. Even if it means that she buries her feelings underneath layers and layers of ice, coating it in frost until she can't feel its burning pain anymore.

She pulls herself together as she stands. Her party sits around her, listening attentively—clefable, wigglytuff, blastoise, ditto, and nidoqueen, all de-petrified.

"We're flying north," she declares. "We're probably still near the Battle Frontier, so Hoenn should be due north."

Wiggly murmurs softly.

"Dead bodies sink," Blue replies curtly. "No point in looking."

Sometimes, an icy exterior is the best defense.

* * *

One minute, they're traveling in a straight line through a misty ocean, guided only by the natural compass set into Red's gyarados. The next, a colossal mountain appears out of nowhere.

"Red!" Yellow shouts. He's noticed it too. Gyara rumbles and changes course, heading for the mysterious mass of rock. The mist seems to burn away the closer they get; the temperature rises and Gyara picks up the pace. The minute that the dragon twists its way onto the warm, rocky shore, Red releases his entire party. His venasaur immediately orients itself to receive as much sunlight as possible while Aero slouches back on its haunches atop a large boulder. A snorlax rears its gigantic head while Red's first pokemon, now a poliwrath, tests the ocean waters.

Only Pika is missing, Yellow notices. Neither he nor Chuchu had been with their trainers when Sird petrified them, so it comes to reason that they aren't with her and Red now. Still, the realization is sudden and sharp; Chuchu isn't here with her.

Yellow's fingers ghost over her available party. Only her omastar responds eagerly, so she immediately releases him.

_Ocean_, Omny notes, his slim tentacles slipping into the waves on the beach. _Big ocean._

_How big?_ she asks, pulling away from her thoughts of Chuchu. She wouldn't have wished petrification on her, but she wishes the electric mouse was with her now.

_Endless_, he responds after a pause.

Yellow glances out to sea, where the cerulean waters fade into grey mist. The mountain above them rises hundreds of feet into the air, starting with the mud-colored rock at their feet that pales into a glimmering silver shine with altitude.

"Where are we?" she murmurs softly.

Red replies from several feet to her right. "Let's find out, okay?" he says, stretching a hand towards her.

Yellow scoots towards him and takes his hand.

* * *

Pain. He needs help. He can't stop crying for salvation, because he _knows_ somebody can lend assistance. He can feel a strong spiritual presence pushing down his mind. Golden light weaves its way through his mind and he reaches out to it. _Save me_, Green calls. _Save us._ _I know you can._

He's passing through layers. The subconscious sensations fade away. He can't feel that strong spiritual force as easily anymore, though he still feels the pain. Then the pain dims as well, and he's surfacing from sleep.

A dream. Just a dream. He's returning to a world where Blue, Red, and Yellow exist, and strange spiritual sensations do not.

New senses—this time, they're very physical. Hands on his chest. Fingers rub against his hot skin almost tenderly, trailing a cold, slimy material.

Pesky girl. Why else would she be rubbing cold water on his skin, if not to annoy him?

Silently, Green's arm whips up and grabs her wrist. The swift movement creates an explosion of pain in his entire body—pain so intense, it briefly blocks out all other senses. Touch, sound, scent, sight—everything but his mind. The flesh he's grabbing has too much muscle to belong to Blue. Blue is not beside him. For some reason, that scares him. Where is Blue?

"…so fast, I didn't even know he was conscious before he—"

"Then it is probably a good thing, Peter, that he is still able to move. Bodies that arrive with such disasters are usually not functional."

Disaster. Green remembers that. And Blue—all her annoying behaviors, her quick thinking, her strange knowledge—like taking his wet shirt off to warm him up… a gap in his memory; then Blue, screaming his name in pain and desperation and something else he didn't have time to interpret before he blacked out.

Why can't he remember anything else?

Green opens his eyes. Soft light. There's some translucent green gel on his chest, sending icy cold waves through his warm skin. His muscles whine with every movement and scream with every sudden jerk, but the strange gel all over his torso is freezing. He's cold and he hates it. Roughly, he pulls bed sheets up and begins to rub the gel off his skin.

Quick footsteps. Hands rest on his shoulders, stopping him. "Hey, you're burning up! You shouldn't—"

"I'm always this hot," Green mutters. It feels like he hasn't used his voice in a while. He almost doesn't recognize his own voice; it's like he's somebody else. He's another person, currently in a situation that he doesn't recognize. "My skin is always this hot."

A pause. "O-o-okay. Always hot. Got it." The hands leave Green's shoulders, only to return with a warm, wet cloth. "Here, I'll rub it off. Sorry; a couple hours ago you started burning up, and I assumed it was a negative immune reaction…"

Green lifts his head slowly, peering at the energetic teenager. The personality, the spiky black hair, the constant smile—this boy reminds him of Red. Behind him sits an elderly lady, who, along with a nuzleaf, is organizing a cabinet full of small jars. Natural medicines?

The teenager continues chatting. "Hey, I'm Peter, by the way." He laughs lightly. "You scared me there for a moment—one moment I think you're comatose, the next you're grabbing my hand! I guess you're not as injured as I thought. How are you feeling?"

"I'm fine," he chokes. "Where am I?"

"My grandmother's herb shop. I found you on the beach after one of the Walls holding the ocean back shattered. We were able to expand the barrier in time to cover up the hole, thankfully, so we didn't have that much flooding."

Flood. Memories begin to leak slowly back into Green's mind, gathering in pools of water. Waking up, unsure of their location. The ocean battle. Falling off Blue's Wigglytuff into a strong current of water. Losing consciousness. Maybe the current of water carried him through a hole in a defensive wall into this town, Green muses. It's practically a miracle that he'd managed to get to this point alive.

Green pulls himself into a sitting position with a little difficulty. Despite the pain of the chilling gel, his muscles don't ache as much anymore. Peter finishes wiping Green's chest clean and sits on the bed next to him, chirping, "So what's your name? Where are you from?"

Green. Pallet Town. Then a memory of Blue springs into his mind: she winks at him as she dodges security after tricking clueless tourists into buying fake artifacts. With the fake alias of Aoi, nobody could identify her—and here he is, alone, sitting in somebody's house and not a hospital after an accident. Something doesn't exactly strike him as right in this situation, so he lies, "Gr—Gary. I… I don't remember where I'm from." Green plants his feet on the floor and attempts to push himself into a standing position. Blue isn't here. "My friend. I had a friend…"

Peter wraps an arm around Gary's torso and helps him up. "I only saw you," Peter murmurs. "You were hurt; I took you here as quickly as possible. There hasn't been any reports today of any other people washing up on shore."

Green closes his eyes. "Isn't there a hospital here?"

"This _is_ the hospital," Peter says, looking at Green strangely.

"You said this was an herb shop."

"And it's also the hospital." Peter presses his lips together.

Green looks around the small herb shop, his mind whirring analytically. Perhaps this is an underdeveloped town on an ocean-surrounded island. If this is the only working hospital, then the city is probably incredibly isolated from the mainland. Little resources, other than those harvested directly from the earth. No communication with the region's main government, or at least not enough to run basic public services.

Of course that's the island he has to wash up on.

No, Green needs more information; he can't jump to conclusions immediately without first checking out his surroundings. He needs to orient himself. He needs to observe this island and the behavior of the ocean around it to estimate how he was transported here and where Blue might be. "I need to go outside," he mumbles. "I need to see the ocean."

Peter glances at him oddly but complies, slowly leading him over to the door. With every step, Green feels energy surging through his body, restoring his strength and vitality; by the time they get to the door, Green's mostly standing on his own feet.

Peter pulls the door open, revealing the city. It seems to be entirely carved out of a white-stone hillside; stairs lead downwards, flattening into a grassy meadow before dropping off into a large lake. Stone cliffs surround the entire city, rising so high into the sky that Green can only see one small circle of blue. It's like standing in at the bottom of a hollow volcano; hardly any sunlight illuminates the city, except for the few weak rays that reach into the darkness through a narrow hole.

There's no ocean. The lake—the entire city—is landlocked. There's no way Green could have washed up on a beach that doesn't exist.

Before Green can ask questions, though, Peter answers. "Welcome to Sootopolis City, Gary. The underwater island."

* * *

In the depths of an abandoned laboratory, one voice calls out endlessly. Children and teenagers who dare to venture deep enough into the darkness hear the sound… and, suddenly filled with a desperate need to return to a world of daylight and companionship, immediately flee back outdoors.

So a boy's mind remains within a stone prison.

_I'm alone. Please help me, Gold._


	11. miraculous - PASTt

******Timeless - chapter 6a - **PASTt

* * *

Gold's alone. It _is_ what he wanted. Now the only thing he needs to do is devote at least four hours every day to attacking the Kyogre Copy; the rest of his day he usually spends listening.

Blue's and Green's voices have long since faded away; only Silver calls out to him now, lonely and desperate. Gold's guilt drags him back to this spot every day, if only to keep Silver's petrified body company. When Professor Oak had tasked him to check up on his seniors during their final battle with Archie, he'd made it sound as if they were truly alive. As if minds slept quietly within the stone flesh of their bodies. When he'd slipped the Ultimate Move bangle onto Silver's wrist, Gold had almost believed it to be true. Silver's hand had been _warm_, as had Blue's and Green's.

Then they began to talk to him. At first they were just little whispers at the base of his mind, only speaking louder when his consciousness drifted off to sleep. But the more time he spends around them, the more he's been able to hear. Full words. Full sentences. Strings of sentences almost like thought processes, trailing on and on and on without pause for breath.

Somehow, he's psychically connected to all of them. They all have him now, wrapped tightly within the clutches of his own guilt. He comes to pay his respects to the friends he failed: Yellow in Red's arms, Silver crouching behind Blue, Green standing off to the side. Because they failed to capture Jirachi, his friends are now akin to baby pokemon trapped in stone eggs.

Maybe that was why he's so attracted to them. They're just waiting to be hatched, and only he knows how to hatch them.

He'll spend the rest of time next to them all, if that's what it takes to break them free of their stone prisons.

* * *

What's a better time to start a relationship than at the end of the world?

They've been going out for the past three weeks and it's fantastic. At first, he hadn't exactly known what to expect with Sapphire. Crystal had teased that she had more balls than he did. He didn't exactly disagree with her either. Still, when it really comes down to it, Sapphire is still a girl. A leading lady, definitely; she drives the relationship just as much as he does. Holding hands, snuggling in Sapphire's room, the occasional kiss.

Now that… that was something else. The kiss.

Ruby will just leave it at that.

But there's the more untraditional aspect of their relationship. Such as the fact that Sapphire spends just as much time in a tree than she does on the ground, yet insists that he join her. And though he gripes about getting his hands covered in moss and scratching his perfect skin, he still learns how to climb a tree. He barely manages. But Sapphire is so carefree up in the branches, perched like a taillow on a branch that looks like it can barely hold her weight, her lithe body framed against the shimmering sunlight filtering through the water dome around them… so Ruby's willing to sacrifice a bit of his cleanliness for her happiness.

He regrets his decision only slightly when he has to exit the tree. It turns out climbing _out_ of a tree is much harder than climbing into one. Though the last branch is at most four feet off the ground, Ruby still clings to the wooden structure like a lifeline.

"Try not to land on your head," Sapphire deadpans.

Ruby unwraps one leg from around the branch and waves it around in the hopes that it will contact something solid. No such luck. "I'm getting bark all over my shirt," he grumbles.

"Would you like me to catch you?" inquires Sapphire not-so-innocently.

"You wouldn't drop me?" Ruby shoots back. When his girlfriend only continues to look at him in what she thinks is a harmless expression, he continues, "Yeah, I didn't think so."

After another three minutes of flailing embarrassment, Sapphire finally softens up enough to place her hands against his back. With her firm support, he finally lowers his legs and alights upon solid earth.

"Ugh," Ruby groans, trying to shake splinters of wood and little wisps of moss off his shirt. "This is impossible."

Sapphire helps him brush off debris. "Just a healthy dose of dirt," she grins. She leans forward suddenly and pecks him on the cheek, her lips resting for just a millisecond longer than he expected. The extra contact sends jolts of electricity through him and he blushes and smiles at the same time.

Then Sapphire grabs his hand and yanks him through the woods. He stumbles behind her as she laughs freely, her feet barely making any noise against the soft ground.

"You're louder than a tauros stampede," Sapphire shouts as they weave around trees.

"I am perfectly normal," Ruby protests. "Seriously, do you make any noise at all?"

Sapphire only grins as she puts on a burst of speed, pulling Ruby a bit off balance. "I'm faster too."

"That's where you're wrong." Eager to finally one-up her, Ruby activates his running shoes. The compressed air within them suddenly doubles his stride, and within seconds, he's caught up with Sapphire. She barely has time to yelp before he's scooped her into his arms and blasted forward at speeds he's never reached before. She screams then, instinctively wrapping her arms around his neck for more security. A superior smile stretches its way across Ruby's face as they race forward.

Unfortunately, all good times must come to an end. Ruby's fifteen seconds of fame ends abruptly when he runs straight through a flimsy plastic fence and into the small lake at the center of the Battle Frontier. There's maybe a second or two where they're truly running on water—or maybe it's just the little bursts of compressed air in Ruby's running shoes. But friction catches up and Ruby trips, Sapphire still in his arms.

She hits the water first. He body slams on top of her. They sink for a couple seconds in a flurry of bubbles and tangled limbs, nothing but the sound of water in their ears.

And then silence.

Ruby should be swimming for the surface. He should want to breathe oxygen. Instead, he sinks into the dark silence, contemplating. Something niggles at the back of his Ruby's mind. Something foreign; something powerful. Ruby suddenly finds himself wondering, _Why can we only contact Professor Oak in Kanto?_ _Shouldn't it be easier to call Hoenn? Norman, my dad. Professor Birch, Sapphire's dad. _

Memories suddenly explode across his mental landscape: everything about his father, from his physical physique to his mannerisms to his speech. Everything they've ever done together, whether amiable or unpleasant. Everything he _knows_ about his father, from his pokemon to his coworkers—especially his strong friendship with Professor Birch.

The blast from the past is the catalyst that drives Ruby's sudden longing to talk to his father. A desperate desire blooms in his heart: he must talk with his dad. He needs to find a way to contact Hoenn. He'll ask Crystal and recruit Tyson and Shane and divert every effort to—

A hand grasps the front of shirt and pulls him in the wrong direction. No, the right direction. He's disoriented and doesn't know which way is up. His sudden snap back to reality makes him realize that a huge psychic pressure weighs upon his mind, squeezing his memories out as one would squeeze soap suds from a sponge.

He bursts through the surface of the water, gasping for air. Strangely, his memory is suddenly fuzzy and he can't exactly remember what's happened in the last few seconds… but he _does_ remember sweeping Sapphire up into his arms and promptly dumping the both of them into the lake. Smooth.

Ruby begins to swim towards the nearest shore, which isn't that far. Why is the lake so deep? Was it deep before? "Sapphire?" he calls, suddenly remembering the hand that brought him back to the surface. "Sapp—"

He barely hears the splash behind him before Sapphire leaps onto his back, shoving him back underwater. Sapphire. Sapph, his girlfriend. Sapphire Birch. Daughter of Professor Birch, Hoenn's greatest pokemon researcher. Memories explode across his mental landscape, though the memories are few and far in between; he'd really only met Sapphire's father once—

Arms wrap around his torso and pull him straight back up to the surface. "You're no fun," Sapphire complains. "You're supposed to fight back!"

Ruby shakes his head in confusion. His memory is hazy at best. He'd swooped Sapph up into his arms and promptly dumped the both of them into… he pauses. He's pretty sure he's had this mental thought process before.

Sapphire slaps him upside the head playfully. "Did you hit your head on a rock?"

Ruby shakes his head again. He's sopping wet. All his clothes are soaked and they stick to his skin in a particularly uncomfortable way…

"Ruby?" Sapphire sounds concerned now. "Ruby, are you okay?"

Sapphire. His girlfriend, Sapphire Birch. "We have to reach Hoenn," he remembers. "I have to talk to my dad."

"Ruby?" Sapphire starts again. "Ruby, we've tried—"

Ruby grasps her hand and pulls her out of the lake, onto the shore, and straight towards the communications center. "We haven't tried hard enough," he says determinedly. "And we haven't _wished_ hard enough. But it's important. He... we have to reach Hoenn."

* * *

The programming and communications lab is a place of terrible memories, but Crystal has to return eventually. She makes sure to do so with Emerald by her side. She would have liked to do it with all her friends at her side—Ruby and Sapphire and even Gold. But Ruby and Sapphire are going out now and it reminds her of her own missed opportunity.

Yeah, so she admits it. She might have had a thing for Gold. He used to strut around with so much confidence. He was suave, cool, and had _amazing_ hair. But the Gold she'd encountered two weeks ago… that had been a completely different boy. Jaded. Destructive. Rude. He'd blown her off so he could angst all by himself. Even though the bruise has faded, Crystal still remembers the sharp pain that had come when he'd speared her with his billiard cue. It had _hurt_. She'd almost kicked him right then and there. She could kick a pokeball 500 meters with good accuracy; she definitely could have returned the bruise he'd just dealt her.

Thank goodness Sapphire had been there.

Despite the feelings of anger and betrayal, though, feelings still linger. Pity and loss among them. She still might have a thing for him, you see. The heart is completely irrational when it comes to love. They're all under a ton of stress, especially with the Energy Kyogre copy literally breathing down their necks, contained only by two barriers reinforced by electronic devices that converted kinetic energy from pokemon attacks into support energy for the barriers.

Gold is ridden with guilt and stress and sorrow and the personal loss of his rival/friend/frienemy, Silver, and his mentor, Red. She'd gone through a lot of stress during their first three days trapped here, and she'd probably permanently scarred Shane for life… and maybe she'd broken his glasses too, now that she thinks of it. But Shane hasn't complained; he does vanish into thin air the moment he spots her, but he hasn't raged back at her. So Crystal does the same for Gold. He'd hurt her, but she doesn't protest at his anger. She gives him the space he wants.

Even though it's two weeks later and he still hasn't changed a bit. She only looks at him sitting next to the petrified statues from afar before continuing onto work. She'll let Gold alone… but Arceus, does she miss his snide remarks and arrogant smirk and the boundless energy that he'd brought into her life.

She hasn't even settled within Shane's recently vacated seat when a call comes in from an unidentified number. Crystal sits up straight at this: it's nowhere near the time that Professor Oak usually calls at. The only things the researcher has had to offer in most recent days were to regulate the amount of water they could release from between the barriers while asking about his grandson.

Unfortunately, the answer is always the same.

_I'm sorry, Professor Oak. Green is still with us, but Jirachi isn't._

_It's alright, Crystal. We'll find another way._

Crystal knows that he's trying to convince himself more than reassuring her. _How much more water can we safely let out from between the barriers? Is Hoenn safe?_

_Most of Hoenn has been evacuated to new locations. Mountain ranges, skyships… even Unova has opened its borders for temporary refugees, person or pokemon alike. Still, the maintenance of those barriers is paramount. Do NOT let those barriers fall._

_Yes, Professor. _

But this phone number is not Professor Oak. This is a completely new number… with an area code that is not from Kanto or Johto. Crystal knows those area codes, mainly because, in her efforts to catch all pokemon for Professor Oak's catalogue, she'd literally scoured every available inch of land shared among the two countries. Just like she knew all the pokemon she caught, so also she knew all those area codes for every different region.

This was not Kanto or Johto. Could it possibly be…

"Is that a Hoenn number?" Emerald confirms, his eyes wide.

She quickly slams her heel on the accept button. "Crystal from the Hoenn Battle Frontier. Identify yourself please."

Static. Then a low male voice. "Thank Ar… I… thought… connection…"

"Julia?" Crystal shouts.

"I'm on it!" the ace trainer yells from across the hallway. "Energy Kyogre is relatively calm. The signal should improve in 3… 2…"

"Hel… Hello?"

"We're still here," Crystal yells into a microphone. "This is the team of trainers trapped in the Battle Frontier. We've been holding back the Energy Kyogre as much as possible while in communication with Professor Oak. We've been unable to contact anybody else outside of Kanto. Could you please state your name and jurisdiction?"

More static. "I am… essor… from Hoenn."

"Julia, please!" Crystal yells.

Emerald runs towards the door. "I'll help," he assures her, pulling limitless tools out from his clothes.

"Thanks, Em!" she says, turning back towards the communicator board. Gently, she rests a toe on a lever and pushes it upwards slowly. "Please repeat your name and location. Our signal is terrible."

Footsteps sound down the hallway. It isn't the _clomp_ of Emerald's extendable boots, nor is it the sound of any regular sneaker or hiking boot; rather, it's the _squelch_ of a pair of shoes that have been soaked thoroughly.

The source of the wet noise comes soon enough: Ruby, soaked head-to-toe with dirty water. Sapphire follows close behind, her bare feet making slightly more noise than usual.

Crystal stares at her roommate and her roommate's boyfriend in momentary shock, forgetting all about the urgency of the call. "Sapphire? Ruby? Did you fall in a lake?"

"Ruby?" the speaker crackles. "Is my son there?"

"Dad!" Ruby yells, racing over to the communicator board next to Crystal. Specks of water fly everywhere. "Holy Arceus, we actually got through! Dad, are you okay?"

"Got it!" Emerald yells from across the hallway. A large holographic screen flickers into existence, showing Ruby's father.

"Dad!" Ruby cries in obvious relief. "Dad, it's a miracle! I was just thinking that we had to talk to you and _here you are._ Dad, I'm okay!"

Ruby's father certainly strikes an imposing figure, with a strong jawline and a hard-set face—one that is currently brimming with unbridled emotion. "I knew you were," his dad replies shakily. "You don't have to be a battler to know how to survive."

Crystal leans forward. "Can you give me your location, sir?"

"Norman," Ruby's father says. "But I am not the man you should be talking to." Norman momentarily disappears off screen. He's returned within a minute, pulling along a familiar professor.

"Dad!" Sapphire yells, joining Ruby and Crystal in front of the screen.

"Sapph, you're safe," Professor Birch breathes in relief. "Thank Arceus, you're safe."

Crystal almost misses it, but she's been around her roommate long enough to pick up on the imperceptible shift in Sapphire's countenance—from relief to sudden guardedness. "Dad, how's Hoenn?"

Birch's expression wavers, but Norman cuts straight to the truth. "Over 25% of the country's land mass has been flooded," Norman states flatly. "Little to no casualties, thanks to your invaluable help in keeping the Energy Kyogre back. Most have been airlifted to refugee settlements in the mountains."

Sapphire's eyes flicker between her father and Ruby's father. She looks like she doesn't know what to say. Finally, she murmurs, "Are you okay, Dad?"

Birch looks at his daughter. "It hasn't been the easiest month for me, Sapph. I can imagine you're undergoing similar stress, but we—the gym leaders and I—are evacuating an entire country. That's not a walk in the park that you take every day."

Sapphire nods silently. Birch seems to notice her uneasiness and asks, "Everything alright on your end, Sapph?"

Sapphire doesn't answer. Ruby seems to finally pick up on her mood and supplies, "Other than fighting for our lives, no worse than what you've been through."

"Dad?" Sapphire asks, her head suddenly snapping upwards to meet his eyes. "Dad, remember the salamence?"

Ruby flinches.

"Our problems are tons bigger than the salamence," Birch replies quietly.

Sapphire's eyes drop to the ground. "I love you, Dad."

"I love you too, Sapph."

* * *

Ruby knows something's wrong. He talks to Norman for another fifteen minutes, making sure that his parents are absolutely safe. They've all relocated to Mt. Chimney and are waiting for evacuation. Kanto and Johto are given priority due to both sitting at a low sea level; Unova, on the other hand, is much more safe at a high sea level far away from the other three regions. In addition to that, skyships—floating towns contained entirely within an airship and powered by hydraulics, magnetism, wind power, and pure electricity—are being implemented for the first time to temporarily hold massive amounts of people while floating colonies such as Pacifidlog Town are constructed.

Crystal takes over soon afterwards, gathering advice from both Professor Birch and Norman on how to manage the Energy Kyogre Copy. Ruby wants to stick around, if only to talk to his father one last time, but Sapphire tugs on one of his soaking wet sleeves and pulls him away.

As soon as they're out of earshot, Ruby turns to Sapphire. "Are you okay, Sapph?"

Sapphire flinches. Ruby immediately makes a note to never call her that again. He'd nicknamed her that in his head but had hardly used it out loud; now he's glad that he never called that to her face, judging her recent reaction.

"He's never called me that," Sapphire finally says, her voice uncharacteristically soft.

"What?"

"He's always called me by my full name," Sapphire replies, whirling on him. "My dad, Professor Birch; I know him. I know every tiny little detail, because ever the salamence incident, he's always told me that, no matter how large the problem, you'll always be able to beat it down with enough training and conditioning. It's our thing." Her voice wobbles slightly; her countenance is on the verge of breaking down. "No matter what's going on, that's what he always tells me. _Always_. I've been out in the field with him, living with the pokemon themselves and training and conditioning myself just like that. My dad made me who I am today.

"So that guy on the holographic screen just now? That wasn't my dad."


End file.
